Gartloch Hospital was a mental health facility located on the Gartloch Road near the village of

Gartcosh Gartcosh (Scottish Gaelic: ''Gart Cois'') is a village in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. The village lies a few miles east of Glasgow, and about northwest of the town of Coatbridge. According to a 2012 estimate, the population of Gartcosh was 2,13 ...

, Scotland. It opened in 1896 and was officially closed in 1996. It was managed by NHS Greater Glasgow.

History

In January 1889 the City of Glasgow acquired the Gartloch Estate for the purpose of building a hospital. A foundation stone for the hospital, which was designed by Thomson and Sandilands, was laid in November 1892. It accepted its first patients in 1896 and was officially opened as the Gartloch District Asylum in June 1897. A nurses' home was completed in June 1900 and a tuberculosis sanatorium opened in December 1902. Bed capacity reached a peak of 830 in 1904. It served as an emergency hospital using hutted accommodation during the Second World War and joined the National Health Service in 1948.

Robin Farquharson Reginald Robin Farquharson (3 October 1930 – 1 April 1973) was an academic whose interest in mathematics and politics led him to work on game theory. He wrote an influential analysis of voting systems in his doctoral thesis, later published a ...

was an inmate at the hospital at the time he joined the

Scottish Union of Mental Patients The Scottish Union of Mental Patients was an organisation first established by mental patients at Hartwood Hospital in July 1971. 27 patients signed a petition to "redress of grievances and better conditions" at the hospital. This was the first Men ...

in the early 1970s. After the introduction of

Care in the Community Care in the Community (also called "Community Care" or "Domiciliary Care") is a British policy of deinstitutionalisation, treating and caring for physically and mentally disabled people in their homes rather than in an institution. Institutional ca ...

in the early 1980s, the hospital went into a period of decline and closed in 1996. Many of the surrounding buildings were subsequently converted into homes or demolished to create Gartloch Village but the Category A listed administration building remains intact but derelict.

In popular culture

In 1993, the hospital was used in the BBC television series '' Takin' Over the Asylum'' starring David Tennant and Ken Stott where its distinctive French Renaissance style architecture served as the exterior of the fictional St. Jude's Hospital. In 2005 a film ''Gartloch Hospital'' was released which gave an account of the history of the hospital. It was the winner in the Best Factual Film at the Scottish Mental Health Art and Film Festival, 2007.

References

External links

Gartloch page on Monklands Online
has a rare image of hospital with steeples intact {{authority control Hospital buildings completed in 1896 1896 establishments in Scotland 1996 disestablishments in Scotland Listed hospital buildings in Scotland Hospitals established in 1896 Former psychiatric hospitals in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Glasgow Renaissance Revival architecture in the United Kingdom Defunct hospitals in Scotland NHS Scotland hospitals