Derelict, decaying Strathmartine Hospital is a target for vandals, arsonists and graffiti artists. With plans to develop and partly-demolish the sprawling site – which has been described as a “potential deathtrap” – Gayle Ritchie looks at its changing fortunes and future.
Strathmartine Hospital started life in the 1850s as the Baldovan Institute, an orphanage and asylum “for imbecile and idiot children”.
Since closing its doors in 2003, the hospital, which occupies a sprawling area of more than 44 acres in Angus, has lain derelict and sunk into decline.
It’s become a target for vandals, fire-raisers, graffiti artists and urban explorers, but it’s a potential death-trap, with many of its decaying buildings structurally unsafe.
With plans to develop and partly-demolish the sprawling site in the spring, it seems that at last, there is hope for Strathmartine – that it could be given a new lease of life.
The hospital has a dark past, with allegations of abuse and cruel forms of punishment.
But for many people, it was a sanctuary – a place to call home.
LONG READ: The story of Strathmartine Hospital
Our documentary takes you behind the crumbling walls of the hospital to reveal its hidden history before it is consigned to memory.
We speak to some of those invested in Strathmartine’s past, present and future.
There’s Heather Kennedy, a nurse who worked there for 34 years.
Heather is desperately sad to have witnessed such neglect over the decades and hopes Strathmartine, once boasting “living, breathing” wards and now “trashed”, can in some way be saved.
She’s convinced the hospital is haunted and has a few spine-chilling anecdotes about figures “walking through walls” and unexpected deaths.
We also chat to local historian Karen MacAulay who has spent years campaigning for some hospital buildings to be retained.
Today, Karen wants the former chapel of rest, currently earmarked for demolition, to be transformed into a museum.
Karen also talks about punishments dished out including a form of waterboarding, “time-out”, where patients were placed in tiny rooms with steel shutters, and “seclusion”, where people would be locked in “tea boxes” smaller than coffins.
We hear from Dundee University archivist Caroline Brown, who has studied the heritage of the hospital and its people.
She’s keen that stories, good and bad, are told, and remain in our collective memories.
Angus councillor Craig Fotheringham talks about the plans to build 244 new homes and redevelop the site in spring.
Meanwhile Strathmartine Community Council member Jim Irvine hopes the development will bring prosperity to the area.
It seems that everyone wants the same thing for Strathmartine – a bright new future with a nod to the past.
