Peel Hospital: A Wartime Legacy in the Borders

Emergency Hospital in World War II

During WWII Peel Hospital treated military casualties and service personnel. (In local parlance it was an “Emergency Base Hospital”.) Casualties from battles such as Dunkirk or North Africa would have passed through Peel on their way to larger bases. The hospital even ran a nursing training school for the war effort. Daily life at Peel could be grim: casualties mixed with routine injuries, and the staff were often military nurses from the ATS/Queen Alexandra’s Nursing Corps. Even in this isolated spot, tragedy struck. For example, on 28 November 1940 Signalman S.S. Macartney – a Royal Signals soldier – died at Peel after being accidentally shot in the chest by a comrade during a training exercise. Such incidents underscored the harrowing reality of wartime service.

After the war ended, Peel’s role shifted to civilians. The Ministry of Health simply kept the huts running as the Borders’ hospital. In 1949 a permanent administration block was built, and by 1957 a proper operating theatre was added. A new mortuary and out‑patients department came later in the 1960s, reflecting the fact that Peel had become the de‑facto general hospital of the region. Nevertheless, its origins as an emergency camp could not be fully erased. Even by 1973 it still consisted of “the mansion house… and a number of standard wooden war time huts used as wards”, with only about 216 beds in total. For comparison, modern district hospitals typically have several hundred beds.

Living in Wooden Huts: Peeling Patients

By the 1960s–70s, Peel Hospital was a curious jumble of buildings: the old Peel House at one end (used as the staff dining room and quarters) and single‑storey huts fanning out behind it. Patients and staff often remarked on the “hutty” feel of the place – it looked more like a timber camp than a hospital. Winters were cold in the draughty wooden wards, and it lacked many modern comforts. Nurses had to push trolleys along gravel paths between huts, and specialised departments (X‑ray, physio, etc.) were squeezed into ad‑hoc extensions.

The staffing situation was similarly strained. In 1944, even during wartime, Parliament heard that Peel could not meet local needs: one MP recalled visiting Peel with Lord Craigmyle and finding men who had been waiting five to seven yearsfor admission elsewhere. The implication was clear: Peel’s limited capacity meant terrible backlogs for civilian care. Over the decades the staff made do with endless repairs and rebuilds – “pouring money into Peel”, as one local MP warned in 1970, was money that should rather go into a proper new hospital. By then it was obvious to everyone that Peel’s wooden wards were obsolete.

Despite its shortcomings, Peel did benefit from incremental upgrades. Alongside the 1950s theatre, an out‑patients wing was added in 1969, and 1960s extensions enlarged wards here and there. A small new maternity unit had been built in the 1940s in nearby Galashiels (the Sanderson Wing), but routine deliveries were mostly done at Peel after that. It even had an A&E department, though it was tiny by modern standards. Still, these piecemeal additions could not transform the place.

• Permanent huts for temporary use – Peel’s wards were literally wooden huts well into the 1980s, a legacy of its emergency origin. Patients joked that their hospital “had no name” beyond the local shorthand.

• Limited capacity – By 1973 Peel had ~216 beds, barely half the size of the 328‑bed Borders General Hospital that would replace it.

• Rural isolation – Although only a few miles from Galashiels, Peel stood on a country estate with poor road access. Public transport was sparse. Many elderly patients or visitors faced a long, bumpy taxi ride from town (or had to rely on volunteer drivers).

• Chronic waiting times – As noted in Parliament, civilians sometimes waited years for admission to Peel. Even urgent cases could be delayed by the hospital’s cramped wards.

• Inefficient investment – Generations of local politicians argued it made no sense to keep funding this ramshackle campus. In 1970 an MP declared that pouring funds into Peel was “like pouring money down the drain”, and called instead for a new district hospital to be started at Melrose.

Taken together, these issues explain why many in the Borders felt Peel Hospital “should never have been” allowed to become the main regional hospital. It was always a compromise – better than nothing during and immediately after the war, but entirely unsuitable for late 20th‑century medicine.

Campaigns for a New Hospital

By the 1960s the campaign to replace Peel had grown loud. Local councils, health boards and MPs pressed the Scottish Home Department and later the Scottish Office to build a modern hospital somewhere more accessible. Proposed sites floated around, but the eventual choice was a hillside at Huntlyburn near Melrose. In 1973 the Regional Hospital Board officially approved plans for a brand-new 375‑bed hospital on this site. Progress was slow, however: political wrangling and budget worries delayed construction.

Debate in Parliament captured the growing impatience. In 1970 an MP for the Borders stated bluntly that Peel was outdated and argued against spending “on a large scale… down the drain in Peel Hospital” when plans for the Melrose site could begin. Four years later a Health Minister had assured the House that the new hospital would be completed within six years – i.e. by 1979. In reality it took longer, but the commitment was clear. Peel needed to go.

Public sentiment in the Borders was mixed but generally pro‑new hospital. Residents accepted that Galashiels would lose its local hospital, but most agreed that the wider area deserved better facilities than a wartime hut complex. Fundraisers and civic groups mobilised around the cause; indeed, fundraising for Peel by the 1970s shifted towards supporting a future Borders General Hospital (BGH) instead.

Borders General Hospital at Melrose

Finally, in the mid-1980s construction began on Borders General Hospital at Huntlyburn (on the outskirts of Melrose). The project was designed by Reiach & Hall and built by John Laing & Son. It was more than twice the size of Peel: on opening it had 328 beds along with a full Accident & Emergency department, intensive care, high-tech operating theatres, specialist clinics and so on – amenities Peel had never had. The Queen officially opened the new hospital in 1988, marking the end of Peel’s era.

After the transfer of services, Peel Hospital was promptly closed (April 1988) and its grounds were cleared for other uses. Staff and patients happily moved into a clean, modern environment. (Ironically, many of the old Peel staff stayed on at BGH, their decades of experience now housed in proper buildings.) Today, the Borders General Hospital remains the principal hospital in the Scottish Borders, serving towns from Hawick to Berwick. It stands as the successor that Peel’s wartime planners perhaps should have given the region long before 1988.

Legacy and Lessons

Today the Peel site is largely unrecognisable as a hospital. The wooden wards have gone, and most of the former footprint is now a housing estate. The only reminder of Peel’s hospital days is Peel House itself – the old mansion – which has survived as a private residence. In fact Peel House is a Category A Listed Building, recognised for its architecture and history. Many of Lord Craigmyle’s original fittings (plasterwork, staircase balustrades and furniture) were carefully preserved when the hospital closed, so the house has kept much of its pre-1939 character.

Locals remember Peel Hospital with a mix of fondness and relief. Nurses who trained there often speak of the camaraderie formed by “making do” under awkward conditions. The Borders community was grateful that Peel bridged the gap until a real hospital arrived – countless lives were certainly saved in its spartan wards. Yet most also agree that Peel was a stopgap solution never fit for peacetime. As one former patient put it, reaching Peel in an ambulance was “an adventure” through country lanes – but an adventure one shouldn’t have had to take when more conventional hospitals existed elsewhere.

In the end, Peel Hospital’s story is one of necessity and improvisation. It should never have been the long-term answer for Borders healthcare – it was meant to be temporary – but circumstances forced it to fill that role for nearly half a century. The persistence of its wooden huts into the 1980s symbolised the very constraints that made Peel inadequate: limited space, outdated facilities and a remote site. The campaign to build the Melrose hospital was just and overdue, and its success finally allowed the Borders to leave Peel behind.

In summary: Peel Hospital served a vital purpose in wartime and helped the Borders community when alternatives were few. However, it was fundamentally a temporary setup – a house and hut hospital – that by the 1970s had long outlived its usefulness. Modern standards and rising expectations meant that Paisley remained out of date, and only a new district general hospital near Melrose could meet the region’s needs. The move to Borders General Hospital finally provided that modern facility. Today Peel Hospital lives on mainly in history books and local memory – a quirky landmark of wartime medicine, now preserved only in the pages of archives and the walls of its listed Peel House.