27 July 2022

It’s more than 20 years since Dingleton Hopsital closed its doors and 150 years since the first patients were welcomed to the pioneering facility in the heart of Melrose.

On 20 August a group of past patients, previous staff and their families are celebrating the 150th anniversary, commemorating all those who worked and received care at the hospital, which closed its doors in 2001.

A celebratory event will mimic the journey taken by the first patients to arrive in Melrose on 14 May 1872. The 124 men and women (62 of each) had travelled by train, via Edinburgh, from Millholme House, described as a pauper lunatic asylum in Musselburgh. Millholme House had been declared unfit for habitation, so the inmates were transported to Melrose and found the energy to climb the hill to Dingleton, despite suffering from physical and mental frailties, as well as probable malnourishment. 

Through the work of a pioneering American Psychiatrist, Dr Maxwell Jones in the 1960s, a therapeutic community model was introduced to the hospital, thereby delivering a healing setting seen as transformative in its day, as well as instilling an ethos of community psychiatry, long before it was recognised nationally as best practice.

Tania Ferguson, NHS Borders Health Visitor Team Lead, is one of the organisers of the event. She said: “We want to remember all those who worked in and received care at Dingleton, throughout a century and a half of mental health care provision.

“From humble beginnings, the hospital grew in confidence and stature, becoming the first Mental Hospital in Scotland, and probably in the United Kingdom, to open all its locked wards in 1949. From the 1950s onwards, Dingleton Hospital established an international reputation as a progressive provider of mental health care.

“To commemorate the anniversary we are organising a fun walk up Dingleton Hill, from Melrose station to the old hospital site, which is now residential apartments. We will be shown around the site by a member of the Dingleton residents association then a gathering will be held at the Ship Inn in Melrose from 4pm for refreshments and a light buffet.”

Tickets for the event are available here and cost £6 (with a small donation going to the difference).

For more information call: 01423 851462, email: dingleton150yrs@gmail.com or visit the Facebook page here.