Overview of Perth Royal Infirmary

Perth Royal Infirmary is a significant district general hospital complex occupying numerous buildings between Jeanfield Road, Rose Crescent and Taymount Terrace, a mile (1.4 km) west of the city centre. It accommodates 280 beds and provides a range of in-patient and out-patient services, including general and orthopaedic surgery, accident and emergency, geriatric medicine, maternity and rehabilitation services.

The hospital was constructed on the Cornhill Estate between 1911-14 by James Miller (1860 - 1947) and found its first use as a war hospital during the First World War. Miller's buildings are neat military-style Neo-Georgian blocks, harled with brick dressings, each of two storeys with large balconies at the front of the wards. A maternity block (now women's clinic) was added 1926-27, with a Nurses' Home built on the other side of Taymouth Terrace (1929-31), and the Robert Douglas Memorial Block (1931), all by Miller. Further major developments came with the Outpatients' Block (1961-62), new wards built into the hillside (1979-81), an extension with accident and emergency facilities (1988-93) and the Maternity and Gynaecology Unit (late 20th C.). The B-listed two-storey villa of Cornhill House, located at the western end of the site, was built in 1790. It latterly served as offices but was demolished in 2007 to make way for a cancer-care centre.

Teaching-hospital status was gained in 2006, in conjunction with the University of Dundee, which opened a £5 million clinical research centre in the Infirmary, concentrating on chronic diseases such as asthma.

The original Perth City and County Infirmary was built on York Place in 1836-38. This is now the A.K. Bell Library.