Former Meadowside Hospital, Kincraig

Former Meadowside Hospital, Kincraig, Inverness-shire

A small-scale, symmetrical H-plan former fever (or infectious diseases) hospital in the domestic style, located in the Spey Valley between Kingussie and Kincraig, Inverness-shire, within the Cairngorms National Park. It was designed by local architect Alexander Cattanach of Kingussie and constructed in 1905–06, comprising a central administration block known as Meadowside House, flanked by two detached single-storey ward pavilions, each with four annexes projecting diagonally from its corners. A single-storey former service block stands to the west. All buildings are constructed from dark rubble stone with contrasting pale sandstone ashlar dressings and grey slate roof coverings. The hospital was converted to residential and holiday accommodation between 1991 and 2002.

The former administration block, Meadowside House, is a two-storey, three-bay building with a stone doorcase flanked by bipartite windows and square hood-moulds at ground-floor level. First-floor dormer windows break the eaves line, each with a pitched roof, timber bargeboards and iron finials. A pitched-roofed single-storey kitchen range dating from 1905–06 adjoins the north (rear) elevation, along with a later 20th or early 21st century timber conservatory on a stone base. A pitched-roof garage in matching dark rubble with pale dressing stones and a grey slate roof has been added to the west gable. The house has timber sash and case windows with a four-pane glazing pattern, broad gable-end chimney stacks with clay cans, and cast iron rainwater goods.

Each of the two flanking ward pavilions has a pitched roof with a keystone plaque roundel to the gable, and a cuboid-plan sanitary annexe at each of its four corners, giving an X-plan overall. All eight annexes have pyramidal roofs and windows on opposing sides, positioned to maximise ventilation through the building when required. The former ward blocks have timber-frame windows with top-hoppers.

The former detached service block to the west is single-storey with four roof-top ventilators, and was also converted to holiday accommodation between 1991 and 2002. Originally it housed a laundry, coal house, stable and mortuary.

Historical background

Alexander Cattanach (c.1857–1928) trained as a stonemason and produced plans for the hospital in 1905 for Badenoch local council. He also designed the nearby Duthill United Free Church and Manse (Category B listed). Meadowside Hospital opened in 1906 with accommodation for 12 patients within two gender-segregated ward pavilions, each containing infected and disinfected ward rooms. The central two-storey block contained offices and staff rooms.

The hospital ceased to function specifically as a fever hospital in 1934, when the county council centralised its infectious cases to Inverness. Meadowside was retained on a care and maintenance basis. Possibly because of concerns about the bombing of hospitals during the Second World War, the buildings do not appear on the Third Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1938, published 1949). In 1949 the buildings were proposed for use as a tuberculosis convalescent hospital.

Two enclosed timber and stone-base corridors that originally linked the ward pavilions to the central block were largely removed during the conversion to residential and holiday accommodation. The positions of these corridors are still indicated by pitched-roof porches on either side of Meadowside House. Other earlier interior features were also removed as part of the conversion. The holiday cottages within the former ward and service buildings are currently (2022) named after Scottish islands including Jura, Harris, Mull, Skye and Lewis.

Architectural interest

The symmetrical plan form — a domestic-style administration block flanked by twin ward pavilions with diagonally projecting sanitary annexes at each corner — is characteristic of turn-of-the-century fever hospital design. The buildings are illustrated and described in the Historic Scotland publication Building Up Our Health (2002, pp.71–72) as a good example of the smaller isolation hospitals that served rural districts. All four former hospital buildings are constructed from local stone, and the central block and flanking wards both display design details influenced by 18th and 19th century Scottish classical vernacular architecture, including hood-mouldings above windows, pyramidal annexe roofs and the keystone plaque roundels.

Innovations in hospital and sanatorium design and ventilation from around 1880 reflected new medical understanding of the spread and management of contagious epidemics. The X-plan of the ward pavilions specifically demonstrates the building's intended function as a fever hospital, and the cuboid sanitary annexes, with windows on opposing sides, were designed to maximise cross-ventilation.

Although the removal of the corridor links and certain interior features has affected the integrity of the building to some degree, these changes do not significantly lessen its special design interest. Meadowside continues to demonstrate its former function and retains special interest through the otherwise complete survival of its plan form, good quality materials and exterior design details. The enclosed corridor links are considered a non-standard element for a fever hospital of this scale and date.

Rarity and historic interest

As a building type, purpose-built fever hospitals are increasingly rare in Scotland. Around 40 local and county fever hospitals were constructed to a similar small-scale model — a central block flanked by twin ward pavilions — between 1880 and 1910. Many have since been demolished, including those at Kilwinning, Bannockburn, West Fife, Penicuik, Montrose, Brechin, Loanhead, Musselburgh, Duntocher, Portsoy, Fraserburgh and Forfar, and others have been substantially altered.

Leanchoil Hospital at Forres, Morayshire (Category B listed), includes a former infectious disease pavilion ward of 1889 with turreted corner annexes. Very few surviving Scottish fever hospitals retain these distinctive sanitary annexe corner projections. The former fever hospital at Newtonloan, Midlothian (Category C listed), built in 1890 in red brick in the Queen Anne style and converted to residential use at around the same time as Meadowside, retains a number of interesting features but does not have a symmetrical ward pavilion plan or projecting sanitary annexes.

Meadowside represents a rare survival of small-scale pavilion-plan fever hospital construction from around the turn of the 20th century, and illustrates the building's former function to a greater degree than most other known surviving examples.

Social and public health context

Meadowside Hospital is part of a wider healthcare movement that developed in Scotland during the later 19th century. Earlier in that century, poor working conditions and limited understanding of how infectious disease spread contributed to high death rates and repeated epidemics, particularly in urban areas. Outbreaks could overwhelm existing hospitals — as happened in the 1830s when Edinburgh Royal Infirmary ceased admitting cholera patients. Improved public health legislation, including the Public Health Acts (Scotland) of 1867 and 1872, helped establish a better system. The construction of fever hospitals was driven by new medical understanding of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and scarlet fever, and was often dependent on voluntary donations and charitable fundraising until the Public Health (Scotland) Act of 1897 transferred responsibility for their provision entirely to local government authorities.

These hospitals were typically built on the outskirts of settlements, at a domestic scale, with two detached pavilion wards or isolation units. The Medical Officer for Health's Report for 1906 described the Meadowside site as an ideal one, well away from the nearest inhabited house. The mountain air, panoramic vistas and closeness to the natural environment were all considered integral to the convalescent recovery process.

Setting

The former hospital is situated on the north side of the Spey Valley between Kingussie and Kincraig, with views towards the River Spey, Loch Insh and the Cairngorm mountain range. Trees partly screen the buildings from the A9 trunk road to the southeast, though the buildings are visible in winter. The site backs onto animal enclosures at the Highland Wildlife Park on higher ground to the northwest. Two holiday cottages of timber construction have been added to the east of the former hospital site. The hospital's location away from other buildings is an important characteristic of fever hospitals of the period, and the setting has not changed significantly since the early 20th century. The former function of the hospital buildings continues to be reflected in this setting.

Meadowside is one of the most characteristic and complete examples of a domestic-scale, twin-pavilion fever hospital to survive in Scotland. The symmetrical annexed pavilion ward plan and the rural setting contribute to our understanding of infectious disease healthcare provision in Scotland at the turn of the 20th century.