Explore #7 of the ‘North of The Wall’ Tour
Day Three
After the previous day’s explore of the relatively small Stratheden Hospital, we headed for something larger and grander…
History (abridged and rewritten from Wiki)
Sunnyside Royal Hospital was a psychiatric hospital located in Hillside, north of Montrose, Scotland. The hospital was founded in 1781 as the Montrose Lunatic Asylum, Infirmary & Dispensary, and obtained a Royal Charter in 1810.
In 1858 a new improved asylum was built in the echelon plan layout, and this 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 – by 1900 the asylum housed 670 patients. As a result two new buildings, Howden Villa and Northesk Villa, were added in 1901 and 1904 respectively, together with cottages in 1905 for the additional staff required. Angus House was added in 1939 to accommodate elderly patients suffering from dementia.
In 1948 the National Health Service 1946 (Scotland) Act brought the hospital under control of the Eastern Regional Hospital Board. Its name was changed from the Royal Asylum of Montrose to the Royal Mental Hospital of Montrose. In 1962 it became Sunnyside Royal Hospital and came under the jurisdiction of new management.
During the 1950s and 1960s the introduction of new drugs lessened the need for prolonged admission of patients, and the Mental Health (Scotland) Act of 1960 also significantly reduced the grounds on which patients could be detained in a mental hospital. These advancements led to a decline in patient numbers, and the site was officially closed in late 2011, with most patients moved to a new £20 million treatment centre at the nearby Stracathro Hospital, and others discharged and treated in the community.
Sunnyside was open for 230 years before its closure, and was the oldest psychiatric hospital in Scotland.
Our Explore
This is one of those locations where the dozens of potential access points are constantly being sealed up by the on-site active security, only for others to open up – sometimes by local kids wanting somewhere to run around and trash, sometimes by other explorers who are willing to unscrew or rip off a board over a broken window if all else fails. As I’ve said before, I always have and always will follow a strict personal policy of NEVER forcing access to anywhere, not matter how trashed the building or remote the area. This is just a hobby to me, and I’m not interested in committing potential criminal damage to facilitate it. There are no shortage of locations to explore out there, and if access was always guaranteed there would never be any thrill or sense of achievement in finding a way inside them.
On this dank morning we found one ground level window which had clearly recently been ‘opened’. Unfortunately it was in a very exposed part of the building, and despite climbing in as quickly as we could, a local dog walker came around the nearest corner at just the wrong time and saw the last of us clambering in. We figured the locals must see this sort of thing all the time, so decided to press on and hope for the best…
Soon we had found our way to the impressive Main Hall…
How it used to look in its heyday…
Next up was some corridor goodness… Mark doing his thing / getting in the way 😉
Looking out into one of the internal courtyard areas…
View looking back towards the Main Hall…
Another abandoned piano for the collection…
Then Mark got a call from Tim (who had gone off to explore another part of the building) with bad news – security and police were outside and currently making their way in! Damn! 🙁
However, the explore had a happy ending – after we spent a few minutes chatting with the police and explaining why we were there, and just how far we had driven from our various homes, the police persuaded the security guard to give us a whistlestop 10-minute tour of some of the bits we hadn’t got to yet! The police left us to it, and after more relaxed chatting with security they ended up giving us more like 20-30 minutes before we were finally turfed out.
The following shots are what I managed to grab during our brisk walk around…
…one of the gorgeous covered corridors which joined the buildings and protected patients and staff from the harsh Scottish winters. 🙂
Once outside we grabbed a couple of quick shots of the exterior and the grounds…
…and then we were on our way.
Thanks for getting busted with us.
Adam X