A view of Foresthall Hospital from the south-west, c 1960. In the foreground is the former piggery, which had also housed some of the Poorhouse staff. The hospital site occupied 33 acres and was described as a village within a city. Landscaped lawns and trees relieved the severe external appearance of the buildings.
The institution was opened in 1850 as Barnhill Poorhouse, to which Barnhill Hospital was later attached. In 1945 it was renamed Foresthall Home and Hospital and became an old people's hospital and residential home. It remained under the control of Glasgow Corporation as a "non-transferred institution" under the 1947 National Health Service (Scotland) Act. The geriatric section was closed in stages between 1978 and 1983 with the patients being dispersed to other hospitals.
Foresthall Hospital was demolished in the late 1980s and a private housing estate was built on the site.
Reference: Heatherbank Museum of Social Work, print 957
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow Caledonian University, Research Collections, Heatherbank Museum of Social Work
Keywords:
Barnhill Hospital, Barnhill Poorhouse, Foresthall Home and Hospital, geriatric services, hospitals, old people's homes, piggeries, poorhouses, residential homes