The hospital was located at a site which was once known as Herdmanflat Farm.[2] The facility was designed by Peddie and Kinnear and opened as the East Lothian District Asylum in 1866.[3][4] A dining hall was added in 1890 and several villas were added in 1908.[4] It joined the National Health Service in 1948.[3]
After the Garleton Unit at Herdmanflat Hospital had been upgraded at a cost of £250,000, mental health services transferred from Edenhall Hospital in Musselburgh. This created a "one-stop shop for older people's mental health services" for the whole of East Lothian at Herdmanflat Hospital.[5]
In 2014 NHS Lothian proposed creating a community hospital on the site of the old Roodlands General Hospital.[6] After all services moved to the new East Lothian Community Hospital, the Herdmanflat Hospital closed in 2020.[7][8]
