King's Cross Hospital

Located on Clepington Road in N Dundee, King's Cross Hospital opened in 1889 as the Dundee Infectious Diseases Hospital for the isolation and treatment of patients with dangerous diseases such as diptheria, smallpox, typhus and even cholera. Built on the site of a temporary hospital, which had been constructed in 1867, it was the work of City Engineer William Mackison (1833 - 1906) and his assistant the notable James Thomson (1852 - 1927), with help from a senior physician, Dr Anderson. The gates and gatepiers are by Walter MacFarlane's Saracen Foundry in Glasgow and are B-listed.

The hospital grew in size over the years and, following the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, expanded its geographical coverage to all of Tayside and North Fife, with the closure of fever hospitals at Friarton in Perth, Little Cairnie in Arbroath and Whitehills in Forfar. The control of bacterial infections led to a specialisation in viral diseases. A new isolation unit, based on a Swedish prototype, opened in 1964 while King's Cross West, the original smallpox hospital closed in 1979. 1982 brought new facilities for geriatric patients and for those with respiratory diseases. This was followed in 1988 by the construction of a new out-patient department, together with a Pulmonary Function Laboratory and an extension of the x-ray department.

Today, King's Cross offers out-patient services including audiology, physiotherapy and x-ray. The national Scottish Bowel Cancer Screening Programme is also based here. In addition, King's Cross serves as the administrative headquarters of NHS Tayside.

In the northwest corner of the site is the remains of Crossroads Station, which opened in 1831 on the Dundee and Newtyle Railway, one of the oldest railway stations in Scotland.


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