Woodilee Hospital / Barony
Parochial Asylum / Woodilee Lunatic Pauper Asylum
Opened 1875, Closed 2001
When the Barony Parochial Asylum at Woodilee was opened
in 1875 it was the largest parochial asylum in Scotland,
with 400 inmates. It closed its doors in 2001, and there
are plans to begin developing the site in 2005.
Woodilee Timeline
1871: Woodilee estate at Lenzie Junction
on the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway was chosen as the
site. The 167-acre estate was purchased in March and
cost £58 an acre. Plans were drawn up by a Glasgow
architect, James Salmon and were approved in the autumn.
James Grant Jnr. and his sub-contractors were hired
to build the asylum.
1875: The Barony Parochial Asylum
at Woodilee was opened in 1875, it was the largest parochial
asylum in Scotland, with 400 inmates.
Mid 1880's: By the mid 1880s it was
licensed for 600 patients.
1898: In 1898 it became the responsibility
of a united District Board for the City and Barony parishes.
1900: A villa for mentally deficient
children was opened in 1900.
1900's: Barony Parochial Asylum in
Glasgow kept photographs of patients attached to each
case note from the 1900s onwards, as well as details
of cranial measurements.
1915: 1300 beds.
1930: It became a Glasgow Corporation
hospital in 1930 (by which date it had been expanded
to a 1,250 capacity).
1944: A new reception house and sanatorium
was opened containing six wards, an operating theatre,
dental surgery and a laboratory.
1948: It became a National Health
Service hospital, under the Board of Management for
Glasgow North Eastern Mental Hospitals, in 1948.
1957: Woodcroft House, a unit for
the treatment of 20 male juvenile patients, was opened
in 1957 and closed in 1978.
1960's: Agricultural labour (on the
Hospital's four farms) was used as a form of work therapy
until the late 1960s.
1974: In 1974 Woodilee was placed
in the Northern District of the Greater Glasgow Health
Board : the Northern District was followed by a complex
series of short-lived a dministrative structures.
1978: Woodcroft House closed.
1987: A large part of the hospital
was evacuated following the discovery of severe structural
defects in the fabric of the buildings on 13 Mar 1987
["Black Friday" to many at the hospital].
1992: Following the National Health
Service reforms of 1992, the Greater Glasgow Community
& Mental Health Services Trust became responsible
for Woodilee.
1998: By 1998 the Trust's plans for
the closure of Woodilee were at an advanced stage.
2001: Woodilee closed.
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