A 200-year-old Victorian asylum is set to be transformed into a stunning five-star hotel and spa.
Photographs taken from inside the eerie building after it was abandoned have now been unearthed.
Dark Explores UKThe facility was praised for being a pioneer in mental health treatment[/caption]
Dark Explores UKPatients were protected by mesh netting around the spiral staircase[/caption]
Dark Explores UKThe rooms are still covered in Victorian tiles and decor[/caption]
Once called The Crichton Institution for Lunatics, it was taken over by the NHS after the Second World War and housed patients until 2011.
The hospital was founded by wealthy widower Elizabeth Crichton in 1839 after her initial plans to build a university there were shot down.
It was bought in 2019 for just £50,000 by the owners of Fonab Castle Hotel in Pitlochry.
NHS Dumfries and Galloway said the deal would save the service £800,000 a year in running costs.
Due to the unsettling nature of the building, having housed thousands of distressed inmates who were abused in the early 1800s due to lack of education and arguably empathy for mental illness, it attracts ghost-hunters and gore-seekers.
Members of Dark Explores K, PJ Exploration, Peaky Explorers and Derelict Detectives were able to catch a glimpse inside the abandoned hospital to document it ahead of the huge renovation.
It had space for 120 beds, with 54 of those beds allocated for private paying patients and 50 for those sectioned under the Lunacy Act of 1890.
The rooms were still lined with Victorian tiles and one of the huge doors was decorated with a Rennie Mackintosh-style stained glass pattern.
The spiral staircase with sky blue painted banisters was sectioned off with a wire mesh attached to the ceiling for safety reasons.
While many asylums of that era were cold and clinical, Crichton founders clearly had an eye for detail and interior design.
The walls were covered in dark wood panelling and the hallways were lined with carved wooden pillars.
The carpet was a royal blue and even the ceilings had painted patterns with delicate chandeliers hanging down.
According to Secret Dumfries by Mary Smith and Keith Kirk, the original adverts for the hospital made it sound like a luxury hotel.
They were told that meals were serviced with wine and there would be after-dinner entertainment like games or even theatre shows.
It was reported that it could have been the first site that hosted nursing lectures in the country.
Despite the horror stories that unfolded in asylums before the 1990s, Crichton Hall became a pioneer in mental health treatment.
In Saturday Magazine in 1839, the hospital was said to: “surpass everything of the kind that has yet been established in Europe,” in
In the UK, the final psychiatric hospitals were closed in the early 1990s after a scheme called ‘Care in the Community’ was launched.
The notion of locking people away who suffered from common mental health conditions and disorders such as PTSD, anxiety, depression, post-natal depression and autism was seen as barbaric and unnecessary.
This was largely due to the education and understanding of mental health.
The hospital was self-sufficient and had a farm, gardens, bakery, butcher, tailor, shoemaker and laundry.
The patients were given jobs within the hospital to help with their rehabilitation or teach them valuable skills.
The hotel-to-be sits on a vast conservation area, containing more than 20 listed buildings.
While Elizabeth Crichton’s dream of opening a university on the land didn’t materialise in her lifetime, it is now the home of several universities and colleges.
Up until 2016, Crichton Hall was used as an administrative base for the NHS and since then it has sat empty and left to ruin.
Castle owners Jed and Joanne Clark purchased the building in 2019 and were faced with a £10 million maintenance backlog.
They were finally granted planning permission in 2024 after the coronavirus pandemic brought building work to a stand-still.
It’s understood that the hotel and spa will create 200 jobs for the area and Historic Environment has described the building as “extremely important both architecturally and historically.”
NHS Dumfries and GallowayIt has been left empty since 2016[/caption]
Dark Explores UKThe walls were painted in a variety of soft blues and baby pinks, with gold details[/caption]
Dark Explores UKThe hospital offered 120 beds for both paying patients and those who had been forcefully admitted[/caption]
NHS Dumfries and GallowayThe grounds had a bakery, butchers, gardens, shoemakers and laundrette[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
