hospital history:
Out in the Country
'There are greater wonders in the mind
than in the heavens'
Inscription on the building stone of Gowrie HouseIn 1882 the last of the patients from the old Dundee Royal Asylum in Stobswell moved to a new purpose-built asylum at Westgreen, near the small village of Liff, outside Dundee. For the next 120 years this area was the focus for mental health treatment in Dundee. As soon as it opened, inspections were criticising the new asylum for being overcrowded. This was a national problem – the numbers of mental health patients treated in asylums increased faster than the national rise in population between 1859 and 1912. The Directors of the Asylum decided to build separate accommodation for private fee-paying patients and a second new asylum, Gowrie House,
was built alongside Westgreen in 1901.
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In 1903 Dundee Corporation bought Westgreen asylum as its public asylum for patients from Dundee. Westgreen became known as the Dundee District Asylum. Gowrie House was designated as the Dundee Royal Asylum and remained as a hospital for private patients.
The Dundee asylums were well thought of between the wars and the rate of recovery for patients there was much higher than the Scottish asylum average.
Dundee District Asylum, Westgreen, about 1910
Evening dance programme for East Poorhouse mental health patients and family, January 1915.
In 1948 both asylums were absorbed into the NHS. Eventually the running of the two hospitals was amalgamated and they were known collectively as Dundee Royal Mental Hospital. In 1963 the name was changed to Dundee Royal Liff Hospital. Under the NHS the hospital was extensively modernised and more accommodation provided. Its maximum capacity was over 600 beds, with most patients staying for short-term care.
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