You wouldn’t know to look at the area now, but sat in the Pleasance was once a pioneering hospital.
The brainchild of Reverend Professor AH Charteris, the Deaconess Hospital opened in 1898. The Reverend had proposed the idea the year prior, suggesting to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland regarding women’s work in the church.
According to a Church of Scotland pamphlet from the time, the Reverend was walking through the Pleasance with a friend when he spotted the house and said: “Tomorrow I hope to buy it, and on its site to erect the first of our buildings in which we shall carry out the training of church workers, not only in mission but also in nursing."
