Saturdays walk was unusual -
We visited Bangour Village Hospital, originally modelled on Alt-Scherbitz hospital, Germany and styled based on the continental colony system, it was Britain’s first “Villa-style” psychiatric hospital. Bangour Village Hospital opened in 1906 as the Edinburgh District Asylum housing patients with mental health problems from across central Scotland. The hospital was requisitioned by the War Office in both the first and second world wars. After St Johns hospital opened in Livingston in 1989 it was slowly shut down and in 2004 the last remaining ward was closed. Interestingly in 2005 the village was used as location for the film The Jacket.
It is now a relic of its former past and the listed buildings left a chill as we walked around the 960 acre site.
Bangour Village Hospital,
West Lothian, Scotland
25.05.2019
