Firefighters battle blaze at historic Glen O'Dee hospital

Firefighters battled through the night to tackle the blaze at the Glen O'Dee hospital. Picture: Fubar News

Fire crews were called out to the derelict Glen O’Dee hospital in Aberdeenshire’s Royal Deeside just before 11.30pm on Thursday night.

The A-listed Edwardian building, built in 1900, initially served as a sanatorium for patients with tuberculosis.

The army took over the Banchory based facility during the Second World War.

The derelict Glen O'Dee hospital ablaze. Picture: Fubar News

And in the 1964 it came back into use as a sanatorium when there was a typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen.

It served as a convalescent hospital until it closed in 1998 when a new purpose built community hospital was erected on the same site.

The old building later appeared on BBC2’s Restoration series, which investigated why each of the 30 old buildings featured should be saved and asked viewers to vote for a winner.

The Deeside landmark did not win overall but received a large level of support.

A total of 10 appliances from Aberdeen, Turriff, Buckie, Inverurie, Kintore, Aboyne, Banchory and Stonehaven were all sent to the blaze on Thursday night.

One height vehicle and three water carriers were also called to the scene.

The fire was brought under control around 4.15am yesterday.

There were no casualties and the new hospital building did not require to be evacuated although some patients nearest the blaze were moved temporarily.

Colin Grieve, fire and rescue incident commander, said: “There were challenging conditions but firefighters worked extremely hard to bring the fire under control.”

Police were called just before midnight to provide support to the fire service.

Investigations will take place later in a bid to establish how the fire started.

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