Inside......

...... and outside.

This is Larbert House, now derelict, but once a part of the Royal National Scottish Hospital. Founded over 150 years ago on optimistic and progressive ideas of educating people we that now describe as having a learning disability, it abandoned its educational role for 'care and control' and became a permanent and very sub-standard home to hundreds of people.

In the 1980s I worked at the local college and made arrangements for some of the 'patients' to come to special classes as part of preparation for life 'in the community'. I learnt a lot from them about life on the wards and in gardens and farm that helped supply the food...... it was not a good life, but as with any situation people made the best of it, found friends and took pride in any role that they had in their community.

Most of the RSNH has been demolished to make way for the new Forth Valley Hospital. The grounds are open to the public and you can still see parts of the old walled gardens etc. It has an wistful feeling if you know what went on there, but although the fact that the RSNH stood on the site is acknowledged on an interpretation board there is nothing to say what it was or tell the stories of the people who were taken from their families from all over Scotland to live there.

A little of the story of the institution can be read here.