LHB44  Bangour Village Hospital

Collection Summary

Reference Code: GB239 LHB44
Title: Bangour Village Hospital
Dates of Creation of Material: 1859-2004
Level of Description: Fonds
Extent and Medium of the Unit of Description: 20 shelf metres: bound volumes, papers, photographs


Name of creator(s): Bangour Village Hospital
Administrative History: By the beginning of the twentieth century the problem of mental illness in Edinburgh had become acute, and the need for a new psychiatric hospital was pressing. Situated 14 miles from Edinburgh in hilly woodlands, Bangour, near Broxburn, was the ideal place for such a hospital. The hospital was to be modelled on the Alt-Scherbitz asylum near Leipzig in Germany, but the first buildings were constructed hurriedly and were very basic temporary structures. The first patients from the Royal Edinburgh Asylum were transferred to Bangour in 1904, and the hospital was officially opened on 3 October 1906.
In 1915 Bangour Village Hospital was taken over by the War Office as a military hospital. Its patients were transferred to asylums around the country. The numbers of staff and beds were increased substantially to cater for the influx of wounded soldiers who began to arrive in June of that year. By 1918 the hospital had reached a record capacity of 3000 patients, crammed into wards, huts and specially-erected marquees. After the war, in commemoration of the vital role played by the hospital, Bangour Village Church was erected and opened in 1929.
Bangour re-opened as a psychiatric hospital in 1922. However in 1939 the hospital again became the Edinburgh War Hospital, with an additional annexe, which became Bangour General Hospital.
In the 1950s Bangour Village Hospital began to take patients from West Lothian as well as Edinburgh, finally ceasing to take Edinburgh patients in 1974. As a result of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act of 1947 and the creation of South East Regional Hospital Board Scotland, in 1948 Bangour Village Hospital came under the management of West Lothian Hospitals Board of Management. The revised Act of 1972 saw hospital administration simplified and so after 1974 the hospital became part of West Lothian District of Lothian Health Board, but the publication in 1983 of the Griffiths Report forced further change and the district became West Lothian Unit in its own right. Since further reorganisation in 1994 it has been managed by West Lothian NHS Trust and, from 1999, West Lothian Healthcare NHS Trust. The hospital closed in 2004.
Archival History: Records held within the National Health Service prior to transfer
Immediate Source of Acquisition or Transfer: St John's Hospital, Howden, February, May and October 2002, November 2003, April and July 2004


Scope and Content: Management 1859-1929; administration 1903-2004; patients (bound volumes) 1904-1982; staff records 1904-1969; photographs 1910-1994
Accruals: No further accessions are expected
System of Arrangement: Chronological within record class


Conditions Governing Access: Public access to these records is governed by UK data protection legislation, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, and the current Scottish Government Records Management: NHS Code of Practice (Scotland).
Conditions Governing Reproduction: Reproduction is subject to closure periods and physical condition
Language/Scripts of Material: English

Publication Note:
Hendrie, W.F. and MacLeod, D.A.D. The Bangour story: a history of Bangour Village and General Hospitals Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1992


Archivists' Notes: Compiled by Mike Barfoot and Jenny McDermott using existing handlists
Rules or Conventions: Description based on ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description International Council on Archives (2nd edition), 2000
Date(s) of Description: March 2002;updated August 2009, January 2011.