The hospital was founded as the Aberdeen Lunatic Asylum in 1800.[1] The city's dancing master, Francis Peacock, donated all the funds from the profits of his 1805 book on dancing to the asylum[2] and an enlarged facility designed by Archibald Simpson opened in 1818.[3]
It was renamed the Aberdeen Royal Lunatic Asylum in 1852[1] and a new hospital for sick and acute cases was built to the north of the existing facility in 1896.[3] Pavilions for the treatment of tuberculosis were added in the 1920s[3] and the facility became the Aberdeen Royal Mental Hospital in 1933.[1] It suffered from bomb damage, which resulted in four fatalities, in 1943 during the Second World War.[3] The facility joined the National Health Service in 1948 and became the Royal Cornhill Hospital in 1964.[1] It was completely redeveloped in the early 1990s and the new modernised facilities re-opened in 1994.[3]
In 2013 the Health and Safety Executive issued an official warning that risk assessments at the hospital for patients in danger of self harming were insufficient, after three suicides.[4]
In 2015 proposals were put forward to redevelop part of the site which was surplus to requirements for residential use.[5]
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