Strathcarron Hospice.

From as early as 1801, the property on this site has been known as Randolph Hill, prior to that it was called Gateside. The present house was built in 1912 by William Wallace, the general manager and director of Carrongrove Papermill, which was sited further down the hill towards Stoneywood. The house was built in the latest style of architecture with a touch of the Arts and Crafts movement by the architect E. Simpson of Stirling. The Wallace family lived in the house until the 1970s and on their deaths the house was sold to become the Hospice. The Hospice opened in April 1981.

The main Day care lounge was originally two separate rooms: a hall and billiard room. Latterly the Wallace’s used the billiard room as the main sitting room, with a grand piano but no billiard table.

One of our recently retired Hospice staff, Lorraine Tenant, worked in the House for the Wallace’s in the 1970s; at that time their staff included two male nurses for Mr Wallace and a personal assistant for Mrs Wallace, two part-time cooks, a scullery maid, two cleaners, a chauffeur (for the Rolls Royce and Bentley) and a part-time gardener. Lorrain was paid an extra 10 shillings a week to return and close all the curtains each night.

Mrs Wallace was an exacting employer who deliberately his coins to ensure that cleaning was done properly – if the money was not found and handed back the cleaning had not been thorough! Mrs Wallace’s frugality extended to keeping any leftover food for reuse if all possible and every Friday she personally concocted a dessert “Friday mix-up pudding”, which consisted of the remains of all leftover puddings from that week. Bed linen was changed once a week with only one pillowcase and one sheet from each bed being sent to the laundry – the top sheet would be used as the bottom sheet for the following week.

The cupboard under the main staircase housed the vacuum cleaner. This was a large machine with vacuum pipes leading up to each room and in each room there were points on the floor were a hose and brush would be connected to vacuum the rooms. At the rear of the cupboard there was a further cupboard directly under the stairs and in the war this was used to hide black market gods.

The grounds were slightly smaller and it was only when the Hospice purchased the house that the land at the back was acquired as a car park. What is now the front car park was a tennis court and there was extensive shrubbery so that the house could not be seen from the road. The pond was not landscaped until many years after the Hospice opened.

The first informal meetings to discuss the creation of a hospice took place in 1975 and by 1976 the first fundraising event took place. The house, Randolph Hill was advertised for sale in the Scotsman in June 1978 and was purchased, with a bank loan, for £55,000 by the hospice committee. A contract for conversion was let in December 1979 at a cost of £247,000. There was a huge fundraising campaign and in two weekends before the hospice officially opened, 2,500 people visited to see what their donations had achieved. The hospice opened on 21st April 1981 and originally had three wards of four patients, located in what is now the Day Care lounge and the dining room.

Over the years the Hospice expanded: building on the end section of day care, with an education department upstairs, the Devon room (originally a ward, now a meeting/function room); the main ward area and then further extension to the main ward area. Most recently the Lymphoedema clinic was added in 2007.

The hospice now has 24 beds, 20 day care places each day, a lymphoedema clinic, bereavement service and also visits patients in their own homes and in hospitals and other care settings. Other services include education and research. The Hospice employs 134 staff and has over 350 volunteers.

The hospice costs £5.2 million to run each year and receives 37% of its running costs from the NHS. The rest, nearly £3.3 million, has to be raised from donations and fundraising activities - £63,000 every week.