The Abandoned Mental Hospital: Creepy in Broad Daylight

Lennox Castle Hospital

Bobby and I’s stay in Scotland was drawing to a close. We only had one day left, and Bobby had a hankering. Abandoned buildings fascinate him—he enjoys taking pictures of them—and in our Google searching, he discovered an abandoned mental hospital in the area. Lennox Castle Hospital was in ruins and half-overgrown—a bucket list item for Bobby.

To access the building, we first had to drive a few hours to a little town, then take a nature walk through the woods. Through the trees, the crumbling hospital came into view. According to the internet, it was an awful place to be a patient. It only closed in 2002, which is kind of bizarre to think about since that’s less than 20 years ago. At this point, though, it was very abandoned.

We were clearly not the first people who had gone there. Cigarette butts, litter, and graffiti decorated the place, and wildlife was rampant around it, helping tear bits of it down. A lot of it was still intact though, like this archway.

Most of the place felt castle-esque. The only real indicator that it had been a hospital was one visible door, marked B7, seen through a window on an upper story. That was honestly a little creepy, like something out of a horror movie, even though the day was nice and sunny and not horrifying at all.

Due to a fire, a lot of the building had structural damage, and since we didn’t have a death wish, we stayed at ground level. We did get to see gems like this wildly hanging staircase, though. Also this tire swing (which runs across two pictures since we couldn't get it to fit into one). Some daring soul climbed into the upper stories to hang that. Eeeeep. I spent some time (as Bobby took pictures) trying to finagle how they could have climbed up there to hang it, and I still got nothing.

The silence there was peaceful enough, but I wasn’t sorry to leave the crumbling ruin and round out the day with some nice waterfalls, which had a less fraught history. The next day, I got on a plane and came home a few days ahead of Bobby to meet my parents as they returned home from their mission in France. Overall, there were some awesome highlights of Bobby and I’s UK adventure, and we plan to go back in hopefully the not too distant future!

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