The Insane Poor in Scotland 1900-1914: Buildings as evidence for regional variations in attitudes and treatment

The 'village' or 'colony' asylum divided patient accommodation into separate villas scattered across a rural landscape in an imitation of a suburban development or rural village. This distinct asylum type attained enthusiastic acceptance in Scotland in the early part of the twentieth century at a time when England and Wales made only very tentative steps towards more segregated styles. This paper will examine the nature of the 'village' asylum, its layouts, spatial organisation and interiors, and will ask how the built environment of such asylums may entail differences in attitude and treatment towards the insane poor, when compared with asylums in England and Wales. In particular, this paper will consider whether or not differences in Scottish asylum environments can easily be accounted for in terms of economy, surveillance or classification - often considered the primary drivers for asylum forms north and south of the border. This paper will link the provision of bourgeois-style domestic environments to wider attitudes to the poor and sick, thus situating asylum provision within both medical and social discourses of degeneracy, while advocating for the wider use of built structures as historical evidence.