The hospital was designed by John Lamb Murray to accommodate 500 patients and opened as the Lanark District Asylum in 1895.[1][2]: 38 The complex included staff-houses, gardens, a farm, a power-plant, a reservoir, a railway-line and a cemetery.[2]: 32 Two large separate blocks were added in 1898, a tuberculosis sanatorium was completed in 1906 and a nurses' home was opened in 1931.[1]
Its first medical superintendent was Dr Campbell Clark.[3]
Its sister facility, the Hartwoodhill Hospital, which was designed by James Lochhead as a 'mental deficiency' hospital, was erected on the east side of Hartwood Road in 1935.[2]: 32 However during the Second World War psychiatric patients from Bangour Village Hospital were evacuated there.[2]: 33
The Scottish Union of Mental Patients was set up by mental patients at Hartwood Hospital in July 1971.[2]: 38 At that time some 27 patients signed a petition to "redress of grievances and better conditions" at the hospital.[2]: 38 After the introduction of Care in the Community in the early 1980s, the hospital went into a period of decline and closed in 1998.[1]
Although briefly used by Lanarkshire Television as a film studio, the Hartwood Hospital buildings subsequently fell into disuse.[1] There were major fires in 2004 and 2016 leaving the building substantially damaged.[1] Hartwoodhill Hospital, the sister facility, subsequently closed as well in February 2011.[4] In November 2025, a large fire caused substantial damage to the hospital's former Nurses' Home structure.[5]
In February 2020 it was reported that portions of Matt Reeves's The Batman were being filmed at the location, with the site dressed as Gotham Orphanage.[6]
