Report - Royal Sunnyside Hospital, Montrose - September 2017

[Mikeymutt]

Sunnyside was the oldest surviving asylum in Scotland with a history of 230 years before it finally closed its doors in 2011. Built to the north of Montrose on sunnyside farm in 1858 after moving a small distance from a smaller site built in 1781. Due to overcrowding the site was expanded further. With a new house built in 1899 called Carnegie house named after the original founder Mrs Carnegie. Two more villas were constructed a few years later to provide additional accommodation, cottages were built for married staff and single staff lived on site. During the wars the hospital was one of the few not used for the war effort, but this meant that they had to take on more paitents from other hospitals putting a huge strain on the hospital. As a lot of the doctors and nurses had gone of too serve the country. In 1948 the national health of scotland took over the running of the hospital and renamed it the royal mental hospital of Montrose. Later in 1962 it was renamed to Royal Sunnyside hospital. The site closed due to a new 20 million pound hospital being built and more care in the community..I visited this with the girlfriend as we were on holiday and we had a hotel booked a little way from it. The main building was quite and undamaged and the decay was slowly setting in, for me the highlight was the main recreation hall with its stunning wood ceiling. There was a few original bits left with the original cells and the dining area. A lot had been converted to a more modern purpose. There is several outbuildings which we did not get time to cover as time was running short sadly, but seen many pics of them.

The front of the main building.

One of the many interconnecting corridors.

Some of the modernised parts.

Main reception.

Main entrance

Seminar room.

Dining hall.

Heading to kitchen and storage areas, these were quite vast.

Fungi and derelict buildings, my two favourite things to photograph.

Old wards with cells on the lower floor.

Heading up and we have some nice coloured wards.

Continued..

 

[Mikeymutt]

More cells with a nice calming warm yellow colour.

Heading up to the upper levels. The lift is a more modern one in the original lift shaft.

Nice wood panelled room next to the main hall.

The main hall with stage.

Some more of the older bits.

Something about this stairwell I really like.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Beautiful set. Lovely decay there. Some of the best shots Ive seen from here.

 

[Mikeymutt]

Beautiful set. Lovely decay there. Some of the best shots Ive seen from here.

Thank you very much Jane

 

[mookster]

One of my most gutting fails, turning up here to find it freshly sealed with anti vandal paint smeared across everything. Never did get a chance to go back.

 

[DirtyJigsaw]

Always wanted to get up there and see this for myself, lovely photos mate

 

[Mikeymutt]

One of my most gutting fails, turning up here to find it freshly sealed with anti vandal paint smeared across everything. Never did get a chance to go back.

I know mate. I was gutted for you when you went and could not get in.

 

[Mikeymutt]

Th

Always wanted to get up there and see this for myself, lovely photos mate

Thanks mate. Shame you did not get there

 

[tumbles]

Enjoyed my visits up here. Especially the second time where I had permission to open up anything I wanted to see. Walking up with a drill, screwdriver and prybar triggered many a local. Odd place really, you’d walk from modern to old bits all over the place.

Those cells in basement at front were proper grim though, you always thought things like that were just folklaw and not something that acruallly happened

 

[Mikeymutt]

Enjoyed my visits up here. Especially the second time where I had permission to open up anything I wanted to see. Walking up with a drill, screwdriver and prybar triggered many a local. Odd place really, you’d walk from modern to old bits all over the place.

Those cells in basement at front were proper grim though, you always thought things like that were just folklaw and not something that acruallly happened

That's crazy that you were allowed to open everything. The locals were very protective about this place. It did go from one real extreme to another in here.

I did look at your report after I posted this and your links to your website. I missed the very old cells. But they looked grim. Even the other rooms looked a bit grim. Hard to believe that it was not that many years ago.