Woodilee Hospital

Woodilee Hospital
Established	1869
Opened	1875
Closed	2000
Demolished	2010
Current Status	Demolished
Building Style	Corridor Plan
Architect(s)	James Salmon & Son
Location	Lenzie, Dunbartonshire, Scotland
Architecture Style	Elizabethan
Alternate Names	Barony Parochial Asylum Barony Lunatic Asylum Woodilee Asylum

History

Woodilee Hospital, originally known as the Barony Parochial Asylum at Woodilee, was opened in 1875 it was the largest parochial asylum in Scotland, with 400 inmates. By the mid 1880s it was licensed for 600 patients. In 1898 it became the responsibility of a united District Board for the City and Barony parishes. It became a Glasgow Corporation hospital in 1930 (by which date it had been expanded to a 1,250 capacity) and a National Health Service hospital, under the Board of Management for Glasgow North Eastern Mental Hospitals, in 1948. A villa for mentally deficient children was opened in 1900.

Agricultural labour (on the Hospital’s four farms) was used as a form of work therapy until the late 1960s. Woodcroft House, a unit for the treatment of 20 male juvenile patients, was opened in 1957 and closed in 1978. 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 administrative structures. 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). Following the National Health Service reforms of 1992, the Greater Glasgow Community & Mental Health Services Trust became responsible for Woodilee. Woodilee Hospital closed in 2000.

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