It was the second district asylum to open in Scotland, but with an enviable amount of lawns, a cricket pitch, park land and its own farm worked by the inmates. Clearly being out in the fresh air doing things and walking was known to be beneficial even then. Though there's nothing in the records about encouraging patients to have dogs.
Its large central two-storey block was designed in an Italianate style by the architect, David Smart (1824-1914), and added to the main hospital around 1871. A large octagonal timber cupola, topped by a turret and weathervane, rose from the roof to serve as an observation tower. From there, the onlooker was placed right in the middle of one of Shakespeare’s most famous quotations: "Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him." Look west and you would see Birnam Hill; look east and you see Dunsinane Hill.
The hospital closed its doors in 1984. Unfortunately, the main building eventually became unsafe, and was demolished.
"Druid’s Park" is a fiction dreamed up when the first developer wanted to build houses here after the Asylum closed. Some in the village don't refer to people buying the new houses there as incomers. They call them the new inmates.
When I was a pup the Murthly Hospital grounds were heaven: 65 acres of wooded paths, overgrown thickets, pasture . . . and hundreds upon hundreds of rabbits.
The cache is hidden in the park, separated from the road by a wall and railings, and from the railway by the usual security fence. Stealth required.
Cache safely. Please swap fairly.