Dingleton Hospital 150th Anniversary Film Fund

What are we doing

We are making a film celebrating 150 years of Dingleton Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in the Scottish Borders very dear to our hearts.

Who are we

We are a group of volunteers: ex-staff, previous patients, and family, who organised the 150th anniversary celebrations for Dingleton Hospital which took place on 20th August this year.

What will the film be of

A professional videographer filmed the 150th anniversary celebrations. That footage will be the focus of the Dingleton Hospital 150th Anniversary Film, along with extracts of archive film taken of hospital life, dating from the 1950s onwards.

Lifespan of the hospital

Dingleton Hospital opened on 14th May 1872. It closed its doors in August 2001 and has since been re-developed as private residential apartments, as with many Victorian asylums across the country.

First occupants, 14th May 1872

The hospital’s first occupants were from Millholme House, a pauper lunatic asylum in Musselburgh which had been deemed uninhabitable several years earlier. On 14th May 1872, 62 men and 62 women, travelled from Musselburgh by train via Edinburgh to Melrose, to become Roxburgh District Asylum’s (as known then) first patients. They must have been weakened by poor living conditions, an impoverished diet, and physical and mental ill health. Entering a newly built, state of the art Victorian asylum situated at the foot of the Eildon Hills, high up on a windswept moor, must have been both a daunting and hopeful prospect. The final leg of their journey involved a steep walk up Dingleton Hill from Melrose Railway station, some task given their weakened state due to poor nutrition and lengthy incarceration. So began life at Dingleton Hospital.

'The Story of a Community'

Dingleton Hospital’s history has been vividly described in a book 'The Story of a Community: Dingleton Hospital Melrose', Chiefswood Publishing, 2000.

Inspiring celebrations

On 20th August 2022, eighty ex-hospital staff, patients and family members commemorated 150 years of Dingleton Hospital by walking up Dingleton Hill from Melrose railway station, mirroring the journey of its first occupants. We walked around the hospital, reminiscing, honouring all those passing through Dingleton’s doors, appreciating anew the grandeur of the original Victorian buildings.

A ground-breaking hospital

Dingleton Hospital flourished under dedicated, progressive leadership. Two of its Medical Superintendents, Dr George Bell, and Dr Maxwell Jones pioneered enlightened practices at Dingleton Hospital during the 1940s-60s. Dr George Bell unlocked the hospital doors in 1949, thereby symbolically and practically freeing the patients, the first asylum to do so in the country. Dr Maxwell Jones introduced a Therapeutic Community model: empowering patients, flattening staff hierarchies, and bringing group processes into the therapeutic milieu. Collaborative working with referrers and the local community enabled patients to stay at home much longer, dramatically reducing admission rates and length of hospital stay, with the lowest figures across Scotland at the time. The open-door policy reduced levels of disturbance in patients and suicide rates became lower than the national average.

International reputation

As a result of such pioneering practices, the hospital attracted visitors, students, and staff from all over the world, including North America, South America, Canada, Japan, Germany, and Scandinavia, and became a beacon for mental health care in the Scottish Borders and far beyond.

Kinship

Our August celebrations saw a re-kindling of the creative compassion and kinship integral to Dingleton life. A glorious sunny day saw some of those present representing three generations of their families, all training and working at the hospital. One descendant's ancestor worked as the hospital coachman in the 1870s. People travelled from all over to celebrate: from Stockholm, Dundee, Fife, Edinburgh, Cumbria, Cheshire, Yorkshire, and London, amongst many other places.

The Dingleton Hospital 150th Anniversary Film

The 150th Film will be a record of the 150th Anniversary celebrations, from the gathering at old Melrose railway station and walk up Dingleton Hill, to the tour around the hospital site, to our celebrations together at the Ship Inn, Melrose, afterwards. The film will include reminiscence interviews filmed on the day with staff and patients, which give fascinating accounts of life at the hospital. The film will be combined with archive footage, amateur and professional, of hospital life. We have a wealth of photographs and film in this regard. Archive 16mm reels of film will be digitised to become a record for future generations.

Initial estimate of costs:

Editing and production of the 150th Anniversary film footage: £1925

Digitising of 2x16mm reels of film of Dingleton Hospital: £1000

Incorporating digitised archive into the Anniversary film: £550

TOTAL £3475