Eerie images of a 200-year-old psychiatric hospital about to be transformed into a luxury hotel and spa have lifted the lid on life inside.
The spine-tingling pictures show the derelict corridors of the historic Crichton Hall in Dumfries, which was previously used as a hospital to treat the mentally ill. Urban explorers who took a look inside the building have now shared photographs of its empty rooms which carry an air of disquiet.
The stunning building, which dates back to 1829, was bought in 2019 for just £50,000 by the owners of a nearby castle with plans to transform it into a five-star hotel. It’s claimed however that the building would need an extraordinary £800,000 a year in running costs.
Members of Dark Explores UK, PJ Exploration, Peaky Explorers and Derelict Detectives managed to gain access to the building, sharing pictures online showing its creepy abandoned corridors. Some of the rooms still bear what appear to be Victorian tiles, while an image of one of the building’s doors still displays a stunning Rennie Mackintosh-style stained glass design.
Despite being steeped in tragedy, the building is also known for its fascinating history. Elizabeth Crichton used the legacy of her late husband, Dr James Crichton, to establish a ‘lunatic asylum’, having been thwarted in her attempts to open a university on the site. Ironically, no fewer than five universities and colleges now have a site on the estate. The Crichton Institution for Lunatics, Dumfries opened in 1839, receiving its Royal status the following year.
Accord to Secret Dumfries by Mary Smith and Keith Kirk, initial adverts made it sound like a luxury hotel, Daily Record reports, with meals even including wine and game. It even hosted theatre performances and may have been the site of the first nursing lectures in the country.
Shortly after the Second World War, the hospital became part of the NHS and continued to run until the last patients left in 2011. Crichton Hall continued to act as the headquarters for the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway until the new DGRI opened in 2017.
In 2019, the health board sold it for £50,000 – claiming it would be saving thousands, with the maintenance backlog coming in at an estimated £10 million. Jed and Joanne Clark, who were the owners of Fonab Castle Hotel in Potlochry, bought the site and planned to turn it into a five-star hotel, creating hundreds of jobs in the process.
However, thanks in part to the coronavirus pandemic, it wasn’t until 2024 that planning permission for the changes to the listed building was granted. It’s understood the hotel and spa will create around 200 jobs for the local area. Historic Environment has previously described the building as “extremely important both architecturally and historically”, dubbing it the last “last and finest” of seven royals asylums in the country.
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