Lennox Castle

We’re starting out strong with this doozy. Lennox Castle in Scotland was built in 1812 for John Lennox Kincaid Lennox.

He was supposedly a distant relative of the Clan Kincaid, who were descendants of some of the notable ancient Earls of Lennox.

Long story a little shorter, the castle was home to an important Scottish family—until it was converted into an asylum for the mentally ill in the 1930s and a hospital during WWII, when the existing mentally ill patients were transferred to other buildings on the property.

Apparently, fights among the patients were common, and in one particularly bad fight, much of the staff (along with uninvolved patients) ran from the hospital.

But the rioters were locked inside and, in the end, they significantly damaged the ward. The hospital was vacated by the 1980s and officially closed in 2002. There’s now talk of converting the building into flats.

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