Background History
The Queen Mother's maternity hospital at Yorkhill in Glasgow was opened by HRH The Queen Mother on the 23rd of September 1964, adjacent to the existing Royal Hospital for Sick Children. At the time it was one of the most modern maternity hospitals in Europe and helped to pioneer the early use of ultrasound scans. An important feature of the building was its "umbilical cord" enclosed bridge corridor which led directly into the Sick Kids hospital across the road, allowing any newborn babies that were experiencing difficulty to be rushed into the neighbouring hospital without the hassle and delay of transport to another site. Over the following decades it was estimated that around 160,000 babies were born at the hospital, making it a significant part of Glasgow's social history.
As part of a revamp of the city's maternity services, the hospital closed in 2010 with services being transferred to the Southern General Hospital and Princess Royal Maternity, and finally to the new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Govan. The empty building was used for storage for a few years but eventually fell into dereliction. At some point during this period the bridge to the active hospital across the road was removed. In late 2023 it was announced that the Queen Mother hospital was to be demolished, with this work now being mostly complete (Nov. '24).
The Explore
This one had been doing the rounds on the Scottish social media scene during the Summer of 2023 and we eventually got round to paying it a visit in November '23. Our entry could only be described as a "Crystal Maze challenge" of navigating the gauntlet of daleks that surrounded the buildings, but eventually our ninja skills won and we were inside. Very quickly it was clear to see that the building had been well rinsed by the vandals, with broken glass and graffiti everywhere. Our main mission was to climb the 10 story "stack" tower, which we located and raced up the stairs of. Exhausted, we paused on the top floor for a cup of tea and some biscuits before climbing into the lift machine room to admire the huge winding motor. We then started our descent, examining each floor as we went. It looked like the tower had been primarily used for bed wards and these were pretty much devoid of anything of interest. The view out the windows across Glasgow and the River Clyde were incredible, even on the dreary day of our visit. When we got to about the 7th floor, the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of voices outside and a diesel engine firing up, followed by banging and crunching noises. We crept to a front facing window which looked toward the active hospital, peered down and realised that this was the sound of a digger munching away at a huge mound of internal debris from the buildings. Other workers were appearing and moving around the front. Until this point we had no idea that any work to strip and demolish the building had started, having tactically avoided the active parts of the site. We proceeded cautiously down to the 4th floor where the tower connected to the top floor of the rest of the building. Making our way along the corridors we passed dozens of empty rooms, then we descended one level and noticed that all of the interiors had been soft stripped with the rubbish lying in piles ready for removal. At this point we heard workers entering the building below us, probably to continue the strip-out, so we decided to beat a retreat and made our exit undetected. The building was absolutely huge and sadly we missed out on roughly half of it, but given the lower levels were mostly stripped they were probably much the same as we had already seen. We were a little late to the party but it was still a fun explore and we're glad to have done it, especially as the buildings have since been flattened. No doubt blocks of "luxury" student flats will appear in its place in due course, as these seem to be the only thing getting built in Glasgow these days.
Above: The Queen Mother's hospital in 1965. Image credit: ob-ultrasound.net/
Stack tower lift winding motor.
The lift control cabinet.
Rooftop.
Stack tower corridor - they all looked much the same.
Bed ward room.
Looking out to the Riverside Museum.
Stack tower floor plan found in a plant room.
The ground floor was a jumble of flat roofed, single story blocks joined together by corridors. We're pretty sure that decaying RAAC structures played a big part in this hospital's eventual closure.
4th floor corridor along the main part of the building.
Lower floor corridor which had been fully stripped.
Remains of a stripped office.
The famous "round room" ward at the rear of the building.
The Queen Mother's maternity hospital at Yorkhill in Glasgow was opened by HRH The Queen Mother on the 23rd of September 1964, adjacent to the existing Royal Hospital for Sick Children. At the time it was one of the most modern maternity hospitals in Europe and helped to pioneer the early use of ultrasound scans. An important feature of the building was its "umbilical cord" enclosed bridge corridor which led directly into the Sick Kids hospital across the road, allowing any newborn babies that were experiencing difficulty to be rushed into the neighbouring hospital without the hassle and delay of transport to another site. Over the following decades it was estimated that around 160,000 babies were born at the hospital, making it a significant part of Glasgow's social history.
As part of a revamp of the city's maternity services, the hospital closed in 2010 with services being transferred to the Southern General Hospital and Princess Royal Maternity, and finally to the new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Govan. The empty building was used for storage for a few years but eventually fell into dereliction. At some point during this period the bridge to the active hospital across the road was removed. In late 2023 it was announced that the Queen Mother hospital was to be demolished, with this work now being mostly complete (Nov. '24).
The Explore
This one had been doing the rounds on the Scottish social media scene during the Summer of 2023 and we eventually got round to paying it a visit in November '23. Our entry could only be described as a "Crystal Maze challenge" of navigating the gauntlet of daleks that surrounded the buildings, but eventually our ninja skills won and we were inside. Very quickly it was clear to see that the building had been well rinsed by the vandals, with broken glass and graffiti everywhere. Our main mission was to climb the 10 story "stack" tower, which we located and raced up the stairs of. Exhausted, we paused on the top floor for a cup of tea and some biscuits before climbing into the lift machine room to admire the huge winding motor. We then started our descent, examining each floor as we went. It looked like the tower had been primarily used for bed wards and these were pretty much devoid of anything of interest. The view out the windows across Glasgow and the River Clyde were incredible, even on the dreary day of our visit. When we got to about the 7th floor, the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of voices outside and a diesel engine firing up, followed by banging and crunching noises. We crept to a front facing window which looked toward the active hospital, peered down and realised that this was the sound of a digger munching away at a huge mound of internal debris from the buildings. Other workers were appearing and moving around the front. Until this point we had no idea that any work to strip and demolish the building had started, having tactically avoided the active parts of the site. We proceeded cautiously down to the 4th floor where the tower connected to the top floor of the rest of the building. Making our way along the corridors we passed dozens of empty rooms, then we descended one level and noticed that all of the interiors had been soft stripped with the rubbish lying in piles ready for removal. At this point we heard workers entering the building below us, probably to continue the strip-out, so we decided to beat a retreat and made our exit undetected. The building was absolutely huge and sadly we missed out on roughly half of it, but given the lower levels were mostly stripped they were probably much the same as we had already seen. We were a little late to the party but it was still a fun explore and we're glad to have done it, especially as the buildings have since been flattened. No doubt blocks of "luxury" student flats will appear in its place in due course, as these seem to be the only thing getting built in Glasgow these days.
Above: The Queen Mother's hospital in 1965. Image credit: ob-ultrasound.net/
Stack tower lift winding motor.
The lift control cabinet.
Rooftop.
Stack tower corridor - they all looked much the same.
Bed ward room.
Looking out to the Riverside Museum.
Stack tower floor plan found in a plant room.
The ground floor was a jumble of flat roofed, single story blocks joined together by corridors. We're pretty sure that decaying RAAC structures played a big part in this hospital's eventual closure.
4th floor corridor along the main part of the building.
Lower floor corridor which had been fully stripped.
Remains of a stripped office.
The famous "round room" ward at the rear of the building.
