Sunnyside Hospital / Montrose Asylum, Scotland

A Scottish asylum with plenty of interesting features remaining, including original cells, a nice hall and plenty of featureful corridors.

Visited April 2016   Hillside, Montrose, Scotland, UK Disused

Sunnyside Royal Hospital, originally called the Montrose Asylum, was a psychiatric hospital located north of Montrose in Scotland.

Sunnyside was the second site for the local psychiatric hospital in Angus. The original Montrose Asylum, which was the first asylum in Scotland, was funded by public subscription established by local woman Susan Carnegie and opened in 1781. Expanding patient numbers led to the purchase of a new site in Hillside and the current hospital buildings opened in 1857.

The site was further developed with the construction of a new facility for private patients called Carnegie House in 1899. Despite this addition, overcrowding was a problem, as the asylum’s patient numbers had grown to 670 by 1900. Two new buildings – Howden Villa (1901) and Northesk Villa (1904) – were added. Additional staff were recruited and the Westmount Cottages were built in 1905 to house them. In 1911 the lease of Sunnyside Farm expired and over 52 acres were purchased for £4500. A further development was the addition of Angus House, which was built in 1939 to accommodate elderly patients suffering from dementia.

From the 1970s, advances in psychiatric care and greater community resources, including supported accommodation and the set up of three community mental health teams in the 1990s, led to reduced patient numbers and the closure of some of the buildings on the Sunnyside site.