Report - Haggis & Hospitals: An 'Insane' Scottish Roadtrip Megathread - November 2022

[Wastelandr]

My favourite shot of the trip - as asylum as it gets

Hello folks, thought I'd share with you all an urbex adventure from last year. Myself and @KismetJ had a renewed in interest in asylums after the gem that is St. Martins emerged on the scene. Whilst we managed to explore a handful of local ones back in the golden era some ten years ago, we had missed many of the asylums in the south of England and decided we would have to travel further afield to see them better. Scotland seemed like the ideal candidate, with several nice asylums still somewhat doable and a few other abandoned relics we had wanted to see for years. This trip turned out to be awesome just exploring non-stop for four days with some banging food - both of which will be pictured. Funnily enough I think I was born to live like this as my sleeping routine and appetite reached peak performance, going to bed earlier than I ever could and eating plates I'd never even glance at before. If it wasn't for the mould and asbestos, I'd actually say exploring was incredibly healthy.

Day 1 - Hitting the Ground Running

We decided to get a flight from Heathrow in the early hours of the morning and arrange a hire car in Glasgow - a rather nippy Volkswagen Golf with all the bells and whistles. Realising I was wearing a t shirt and joggers and the first place was already only minutes round the corner, I had to strip down to my pants in the car park and put the newly acquired boots and trousers on - it's the small freedoms on trips like these. Getting to grips with the pedals, we were already en-route to our first destination before 9:30am.

Royal Alexandra Infirmary, Paisley

The first place we had on our radar was the Royal Alexandra general hospital. Not an asylum but of late-Victorian vintage, it was an impressive building built in the Scottish Baronial style out of the same murky red sandstone as what felt like every building in Paisley - not the most attractive following years of soot and damp. It was a very easy explore and made for a good 'compensation explore' in case the rest of the day was less successful. The building is covered in these weird metal shutters which fortunately let light in on the inside.

Gartloch District Asylum

Next we were onto our next place - Gartloch Hospital which opened in 1896. Its' bed capacity reached 830 in 1904, so of moderate size but not enormous. It's currently under redevelopment into a residential park like many of the aslyums, so there wasn't too much to explore of the main complex. But it made for some great photographs nonetheless with its very gothic-looking water towers. Like Royal Alexandra, it was built from red sandstone with Scottish Baronial embellishments. We then went down the road to find the old mortuary - small yet nonetheless pretty cool.

I decided to cheat death


Lennox Castle Hospital

We then moved on to the final explore of the day; not strictly an asylum but a hospital specifically for those with learning disabilities - a distinction probably rarely made at the time. One of the influences for this trip was the 2007 documentary Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness which seems to capture an earlier and more exciting time for exploring I barely caught the tail end of. It features several Scottish locations and it's surprising some are still doable. One such place is Lennox Castle Hospital further outside Glasgow on the edge of the stunning Campsire Fells hills. Its more naturally scenic location made for the perfect end to a day exploring grittier-looking places. The castle was built in the mid 1800s as an elaborate home, and was purchased for conversion into a hospital before opening in 1936. It accommodated around 1,200 patients and was reported as 'vastly overcrowded, understaffed and underfunded'. Little changed when it was closed in 2002, with reports of poor treatment throughout its lifespan.

So that was Day 1 complete. As the sun was setting and we were becoming exhausted we clocked into our hotel back in Paisley. What was needed was a celebratory meal, and after a quick google we found an all you can eat buffet down the road. We ate until we could barely move, and washing a mixture of all sorts of questionable cuisine down with a pint of Tenants it was time to call it a wrap.

 

[Wastelandr]

Day 2 - A Win for Every Loss

Day 2 had begun and we were both excited and apprehensive about what it might hold - pretty much how I feel before every explore. We were going in big with two places we really wanted to see so we were counting on this day to be fruitful. This trip took us much further afield - from Glasgow to Perth. On the way we drove passed an insanely photogenic abandoned Little Chef which I'm gutted I didn't photograph, so here's a photo someone else took.

Murray Royal Lunatic Asylum

Parking down a well-to-do residential street on a foggy morning, it felt like prime window-twitcher territory and we had to do the classic 'walk up and down the pavement five times before going in' as dog walkers and joggers came left right and centre. This place was not a county asylum and was built at the bequest of local man James Murray early in 1828 as a private construction, making this place a gem of Georgian architecture. It wasn't going to be difficult getting within the perimeter of this site, but getting in the building was another matter. We went to great lengths trying numerous doors, considering numerous climbs, and even getting into rooms locked to the rest of the hospital. Finally we realised the option we had dreaded was the only way, which to be honest I think I might as well show given that it would be impossible for the majority of people. I'm going to use this as my excuse for never working out or having grown since the age of 16.

Inside, the building got better and better as we moved from the stripped parts undergoing redevelopment works into the untouched old sections. Whilst having avoided vandalism, it seems the building was decaying fast due to the ingress of water and damp and it's sad to see how much the stunning ballroom has decayed since @UrbandonedTeam 's pictures only a few years ago. There were even mushrooms growing out the walls.

Stratheden Hospital (Fife & Kinross District Asylum)

We were already chuffed with what we had found for the day and the many bracketed photographs we knew would take hours to sort. But we had another biggie lined up - Stratheden Hospital. This was a big aslyum near Fife which is still half in use by the NHS. We hoped this one might bring back the glory of the huge abandoned county asylums many moons ago which we mostly missed. After sneaking very sheepishly towards the building, we kept having to hide from people only to realise they were local dogwalkers. We checked just about every bit of the hospital we could, including a climb into a service area, only to realise our efforts were to no avail. This one would be a loss, but it was still great to photograph another asylum's architecture from the outside, especially in the mist which was very atmospheric.

So that was day 2 complete. We finished the day by going to our next hotel near Edinburgh and decided to go into the town at night. We took a look at the castle and some other sights before going to a haggis restaurant. Having tried it before I was a big fan but I was yet to convince @KismetJ with whom I had joked with about haggis sounding like the worst food on earth as kids. Well it turns out he must have been a fan because he even got it again when visiting Scotland himself a few months later.

 

[tumbles]

Fuck yes

 

[jtza]

Class report

 

[Mikeymutt🐶]

Great set mate. That pic of you in thar little window makes me smile still. I went in one similar at a mill, still makes me wonder how I done it. I still ain’t been Lennox castle and always wanted to see it. I still ain’t been in the Alexandr, the girlfriend has been in four times as near here. I went past several times at Christmas visiting the hospital that replaced it. Really enjoyed reading this and looked a great trip.

 

[Wastelandr]

Day 3 - Another One Bites the Dust

We were now into the thick of the road trip and loving life. I was also rather liking this Irn Bru stuff which is unlike me as I'm generally not a fan of basement-dweller fizzy drinks and the like. The day ahead saw three asylums lined up - all quite different in their designs. We weren't expecting to explore the insides of these too much except for maybe the first, we were really just mopping up places for the sake of completion. But nonetheless it turned out to be a great adventure.

Rosslynlee Hospital (Midlothian & Peebles Asylum)

This place was situated south of Edinburgh in an eerie area of farmland and pines (maybe). It was another classic sprawling asylum like Stratheden, but to avoid disappointment we already didn't expect to get in seeing that reports had dried up in the last few years. Suspiciously parking the hire car in the middle of nowhere, it was quite obvious it was parked there for nothing other than the abandoned asylum. We assessed the perimeter only to find camera after camera on poles covered every few metres of the fence. Seeing a bit of a gap in their field of view we decided to chance it and hope their lenses weren't as wide as our cameras. A bit of anti-climb war paint on us now, we made it into some of the corridors of the hospital. However, this sadly led nowhere. We got more confident and risked walking the edge of the building still to find no entrances. An outbuilding seemed to be open but we didn't try it, but I kind of wish we did now given the rest was a no go. This place was built in 1874 in a classical style and features this interesting patchwork of different coloured stone - don't know if it was always like that or if it's discolouration.

Bangour Village Hospital

If you ever go with your other half, don't tell her parents you've taken her to Bangour. As we drove past this place, looking down into the valley we saw a dark satanic view of diggers and demolition works amongst a stark industrial ruin of the hospital. It's in the process of being converted into yet another residential estate, but they were only working on this front section - it must've been the boiler house as I just remember seeing a chimney. This was an asylum very different to the huge sprawling buildings of most, built after 1906 and modelled on a German hospital which used a village-style of patient care with each building spread out. The site even once had its own railway, and served the War Office in WW1.

It turns out the whole site is open as a park for pedestrians and dog walkers with the buildings individually fenced off. The architecture was varied but a lot of the smaller villas had the look of a Monty Python and the Holy Grail faux-medieval film set probably due to the colour scheme and corner stonework. There was an impressive Romanesque church too but like everything else this was sadly sealed. We did think we found a way into the main hospital building, but as we tried to climb the heras fence the whole thing started toppling over. Given that a dog walker could turn the corner at any minute, we bottled it but looking at photos online after of the interiors it looked like it would've been good. Even if we didn't make it into much, it made for a stroll around what felt like a bizarre giant model village.

 

[Wastelandr]

Hartwood Hospital (Lanark District Asylum)

We had a final asylum to check out for the day, again we weren't expecting too much interior-wise but we still wanted to photograph it. To be honest I enjoy photographing exteriors an awful lot and the beauty of this trip was building up a set of Scottish asylum photographs to compare and contrast their designs. Hartwood Hospital was opened in 1895 and closed in 1998, having seen some recent use in the set of The Batman as 'Gotham Orphanage'. The site was wide open and the buildings were absolutely knackered. It comprised two large buildings separated by the current village railway and was a pretty hilly bleak area. Both buildings were absolutely knackered being the final survivals of this otherwise demolished asylum. The first was a sort of giant ward or villa block, quite unusual in its height and reminded me of the American asylums. This was fully sealed but you could tell parts were burnt out inside and was once probably rife with the local youth.

The second building was the looming administration block with its twin water/clock towers a bit like Gartloch. It was built in the Scottish Baronial style seen in the Glasgow hospitals on Day 1, which I would just call gothic af but probably isn't really anything like actual Gothic. To put it simply, very imposing and ornamental. This building was half-demolished and really just a ruin now. We had hoped to climb a clocktower but I don't even know if it's possible anymore and after a sheepish look inside the ruin we decided to call it a day as the sun was setting.

So that was Day 3 complete - not the most hardcore, but frankly just a great day of roaming and photographing different places. For dinner this time we decided to hit up the local Beefeater, staying back in Glasgow this time. I'd never been to a Beefeater before but corr did it slap. I ordered this grill of a side of ribs, pulled pork mac n cheese, sausages, coleslaw, sweetcorn and chicken and demolished the lot. A very generous helping helped by having built up quite the appetite.

 

[Wastelandr]

Day 4 - Relief from Hospitals

The final day of the trip was upon us. Even though we had to get a flight back early that evening, we were still going to make the most of what time we had. Now I appreciate this might be a bit out of place in the hospitals area of the forum, but I felt it would be a miss to omit the final day. Whilst the trip was themed around hospitals and asylums, this was our first opportunity to explore in Scotland so there were a few places that had needed paying homage to for years.

Clune Park Estate, Port Glasgow

It was absolutely chucking it down. We'd been lucky with the weather so far, but our luck had run out. I don't take great care of my camera ('it's there to be used') but I did have to tuck it away between shots. As we had to drive this way we thought we'd swing by a docking town along the River Clyde called Port Glasgow and see the Clune Park Estate which has been doing the rounds. I can't lie the place was rough and that wasn't even the abandoned bit. To call it 'Scotland's Chernobyl' might be an unfitting comparison, but it certainly felt like it was a disaster waiting to happen. The place was built at the turn of the 20th century to house dock workers and had a school and church added (both pictured). It's not a full ghost town as it's really just a couple of streets but it felt proper dodgy parking up. Somehow the Golf stayed intact. Whilst seemingly empty, the odd car did drive round and pull up occasionally which was strange, and a few double glazed windows looked as though the odd person was still living in this place. It was a real eye opener and to be honest was a harsh insight into genuine poverty still prevalent in the UK. Certainly felt a bit on edge going into the blocks briefly, for a change not because of the building but because of who might be inside. I think it's the most crackhead place I've ever been to as @Mikeymutt can vouch for.

Site of Inverkip Power Station

This OG location had been on my bucket list forever but given it was no longer there it was more of a last minute decision to quickly pay respects. Why would you want to visit a power station that's long-since been demolished you may ask? Well, my exploring career was actually conceived here. No not like that, this is the first abandoned place that ever caught my attention. Back in 2009 I was tasked with doing a Geography project at school. We were each given a random topic to make a presentation on, and I got Inverkip power station. 'That sounds boring' I thought. But it turns out after a bit of googling I was blown away by the fact a whole power station with old-school control rooms etc could be left with the power on, and people were just wandering in! I didn't know what urbex was at the time and wouldn't stumble across the hobby until two years later, but that was where I can trace my fascination back to. I took a quick walk through the old gates - the only bit still left really, and looked out across the clearance site with a vast view of the Firth of Clyde with a sense of completion.

St. Peter's Seminary

This place was another to appear in the 2007 Into the Darkness film, and it had to be done as I've known about it more or less since I started 12 years ago as a kid and saw it in books and all sorts. I won't detail this place because I already did a thorough report with all the best pics here: Report - - St. Peters Seminary, Cardross, Scotland - Nov 2022 | Other Sites

Epilogue

So that concludes the Scotland roadtrip. Blimey I realise how much we packed in looking back at the photos and writing about it. It did make me wonder - if I could explore full time, would it actually be good? It was a great way to live for a few days, but any more and I think I'd have burnt myself out. Maybe the ideal would be a few days on, a few days off for research etc. Alright I'm waffling but if you made it this far cheers for reading!

But I couldn't finish it without a behind-the-scenes photo, so here's two funny ones I found. The first is a class meal before the flight home in the BA Lounge I was lucky enough to get into thanks to @KismetJ - it wouldn't be a Scottish roadtrip without a wee dram of whiskey. Cheese and crackers is always a winner. The other pic is my bag at the end - look how grim it became. Probably one sniff of that thing and you've lost 10 years instantly. It's one of those bags that opens from the inside meaning the front gets put down on the ground a lot.

 

[Wastelandr]

35mm Photographs

Royal Alexandra Hospital:

Gartloch Asylum:

Lennox Castle Hospital:

Murray Royal Asylum:

Stratheden Asylum:

Rosslynlee Asylum:

Bangour Village Asylum:

Hartwood Asylum:

 

[HughieD]

Blimey. You can't argue with all that. Mega report!

 

[KPUrban_]

Really well put together, photographed and written with the 35mm film being the cherry on top.

 

[host]

And that’s how it’s done, absolute top notch report and stunning imagery. Job well done.

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Not a bad way to spend a fed days, ticked all them boxes over 2 visits myself

 

[Lndnpdd]

Absolutely cracking report, you got some really amazing photos!

 

[tumbles]

Top notch, got a feeling the block left at Hartwood was the nurses accommodation but am not very clued up on the Scottish asylums. Murray Royal looks fantastic with the decay.