The Orkney Image Library
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With the opening of the Dounby Care Centre taking place today, our topical trip through the past (does that make sense) shows its antecedent, the building most of us will know as the County Home, on Old Scapa Road. Known at the outset as the Orkney Combination Poorhouse it is fine looking building and undoubtedly will have been a big step forward for the 'service users' of its day, although conditions were primitive compared with that of modern care homes with dormitories instead of individual rooms.
Now I believe the building is in use as Andersquoy Sheltered Housing.
A Tom Kent picture, date unknown.
Picture added on 28 June 2005
Further historical information on the Combination Poorhouse can be found at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/Orkney/Orkney.shtml
Added by David Mackie on 30 June 2005
Kirkwall
