| Administrative History | Under the Poor Law Amendment (Scotland) Act, 1845, the Church was relieved of its duties in the field of poor relief. Parochial Boards were established to administer the poor law, with powers to combine with other boards to erect a poorhouse. The combination formed in Buchan originally comprised sixteen parochial boards - Fraserburgh, Strichen, New Deer, Tyrie, Pitsligo, Rathen, Lonmay, Cruden, Ellon, Methlick, Old Deer, Tarves, Udny, Logie-Buchan, Longside and Monquhitter. Under a Deed of Constitution in May 1866 they joined forces to erect a poorhouse. They decided to place it in Maud because of its central position in the district and, as it was a railway junction, easily accessible.
Building began in 1867 and the Buchan Combination Poorhouse house was eventually opened on 26 January 1869. It had accommodation for 180 ordinary inmates and 24 lunatics, and had cost £5,700. In the 1870s additional land was feued in order to extend the lunacy wards and by 1879 there was accommodation for an additional 28 lunatic inmates.
Ten more Parochial Boards - Fyvie, Turriff, King-Edward, Auchterless, Foveran, Aberdour, St Fergus, Crimond, Forglen and Slains - joined the combination in 1880, and in 1883 the poorhouse was altered to improve the kitchen and to provide separate wards for sick inmates. In 1913 the central poor law authorities approved an application to reduce the number of beds for ordinary inmates to 118.
Even after this reduction, the poorhouse was seldom fully occupied. Thus, during the First World War, when the poorhouse was asked to receive a number of inmates from Aberdeen’s Oldmill poorhouse, which had requisitioned as a military hospital, space room was readily found for more than 20 additional inmates.
From 1920 the word ‘poorhouse’ was no longer recorded on birth and death certificates, the address being given simply as 20 Bulwark Road, Maud, and in 1924 the Buchan Combination Poorhouse formally became the Buchan Combination Home. From 1930 to 1948 the home was run by Aberdeen County Council’s public assistance department.
When the National Health Service was set up in 1948, the Buchan Combination Home was one of several former poorhouses that were transferred to the new service, largely because the majority of its inmates were then classified as ‘sick’. The Home was re-named Maud Hospital in 1950 and cared mainly for geriatric patients. It closed in October 2008. |
| Description | Minutes, 1866 - 1948; financial records 1879-1958; registers: inmates, lunatics, deaths, attendants, etc., 1869 - 1951; case notes (indexed), 1928 - 1947; miscellaneous, including reports, circulars, visitors book, etc., 1869 - 1947; photograph, 1980. |