Long description

Figure 8 The first Glasgow Asylum for Lunatics, at Parliamentary Road, Dobbie's Loan, opened in 1814 and renamed the Glasgow Royal Asylum after it acquired a royal charter in 1824. This engraving underlines the representation of the asylum as a rural retreat. Clearly, the site was selected because of its appreciable remove from the urban sprawl of Scotland's rapidly expanding second city. The architect, William Stark, and its directors and staff, certainly claimed common ground with the ethos of the Retreat. This engraving was reproduced repeatedly to publicise the asylum, even after it had been rebuilt in Tudor-Gothic style on a new site at Gartnavel, Glasgow (where it remains to this day)