The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Strathmartine Hospital:
Derelict and decaying, Strathmartine Hospital near Dundee is a target for vandals and fireraisers. Now, however, there are plans to develop the sprawling site – which has been described as a “potential deathtrap”. To mark the launch of a new documentary b
The tattered shreds of 1960s-style floral curtains shift soundlessly against gaping windows, the jagged panes of smashed glass glinting in the dim winter light.
Mould spores cling to rotting walls and planks of desiccated chipboard hang from doorways in a lacklustre attempt to keep out intruders.
Gazing down dark, desolate corridors, Stanley Kubrick’s iconic horror film The Shining springs to mind, although the grim spectre of decaying Strathmartine Hospital is more likely to give you nightmares.
At the bottom of a dank stairwell, you’re confronted with a skull and crossbones crudely spray-painted on a wall with the challenge: “If you can find the body,
you win”, tagged beside it.
A few feet away, a ward boasts a wallpaper that seems incongruously cheery.
An off-white shade, it features clocks, flowers and items of crockery.
On walls nearby, the paper is torn and shredded, the paint peeling, the brickwork behind it exposed to the elements.
Crumpled on the ground alongside chunks of fallen rubble are long-forgotten festive decorations – some tinsel and an ironic “Merry Christmas” sign.
At every turn, there’s the drip, drip, drip of water seeping its way into the rotten core of the structure.
And yet, amidst all the decay and neglect, there’s new life.
Nature has reclaimed many of Strathmartine’s abandoned buildings, now
home to sprawling swathes of vegetation.
Trees branch up through floors, and ferns sprout up through the rubble.
Moss, a fan of the damp, thrives here, too.
Some might find beauty in the abandonment, but the overriding sense at Strathmartine is of foreboding, of sadness, of neglect.
As it sinks further into decline, very few of its buildings, spread across 44 acres, can be saved.
The only hope is that a new lease of life can be injected into the site via plans for a major redevelopment in spring.
Strathmartine Hospital started life in the 1850s as the Baldovan Institution, an orphanage and asylum “for imbecile and idiot children”.
Founded in 1852 by Sir
John and Lady Jane Ogilvy, it was the first facility of its kind in Scotland.
Today the word “asylum” has all sorts of negative connotations, but for many people, Baldovan was a sanctuary – a place to call home, somewhere safe. A sanctuary.
There was a dark side to its history, too, with allegations of abuse, cruel forms of punishment and suicide in the mix.
The hospital was transferred to the NHS in 1948 before it was decommissioned in stages in the 1980s.
It finally closed in 2003, becoming a target for vandals and fire-raisers.
Plans have been approved by Angus Council to transform the site into a new housing development, a monumental task which involves restoring some
buildings but demolishing the vast majority.
Memories, both positive and negative, remain in the hearts and minds of those who lived and worked at Strathmartine and many people care about its future.
Local campaigner Karen McAulay has fought to save the structure from falling into disrepair for decades.
“It’s full of dangerous buildings – Strathmartine Hospital has become a potential death trap,” she says.
“Over the years I’ve watched it degrade and deteriorate and be targeted by vandals and arsonists to the point where there’s only a slim chance of some buildings being saved.”
Karen’s mum, grandmother and greatgrandmother all worked at Strathmartine.
Heather Kennedy worked at Strathmartine for 34 years, starting at the age of 16 in 1976 as a governess, helping children with subjects like writing and music, and ending her career as a staff nurse.
“It breaks my heart to see it in this terrible, neglected state,” she laments, glancing in the direction of the vandalised, boarded-up wards.
“I remember how these were living, breathing wards with patients – I can see them in my mind’s eye.
“I’d be walking around speaking to them, assisting their needs, and now these wards are absolutely trashed. It’s so sad.”
When Heather first started at Strathmartine, there were around 600 patients including babies, children and elderly people. Some wards had up to 50 people in them at a time.
“It was a lot and we were short staffed but we just got on with it,” she says.
Working at Strathmartine runs in Heather’s family with her father, several cousins, her brother and two sons employed there over the decades.
Heather claims to have witnessed paranormal activity on numerous occasions while on duty.
“One of the main things that attracts people up here is that it’s haunted,” she says.
“I’ve had a few strange experiences which sent a chill down my spine.
“In ward 15, I was washing patients’ hands and faces with a charge nurse when she screamed.
“She said, ‘Heather, I’ve just walked through a figure sitting cross-legged on the floor and it lifted its head to look at me’. She was shaking.
“In ward five, a charge nurse was sitting with a student nurse when the figure of an older lady walked through the wall.
“That ward had a little room upstairs and I always had this terrible feeling something was pressing down or looking at me.
“On ward 11, when I was with a nursing assistant, we heard keys jangling and assumed it was a manager. We looked all round the ward but no-one was there.
“A lot of people died at Strathmartine.”