Monday June 2nd 2025
The St. David's Bradbury Day Centre in Newtongrange
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
St. David’s Bradbury Day Centre, located near Welfare Park in Newtongrange, is the only day centre of its kind, offering a sociable space for the elderly to socialise and take part in activities 7 days a week.
Their programme of activities are provided all week round and run between 11 am and 2:30 pm. These activities include trips, gardening, crafts and musical entertainment, alongside simply catching up with a friend over a cup of tea. The day centre provides tea, coffee and lunch at a small fee. They also offer transport to people within the catchment area of Newtongrange, Easthouses, Mayfield, Gordebridge, Bonnyrigg and Woodburn.
They are the only facility of its kind in Midlothian, due to being the only centre that takes people with personal needs, alongside being open all week round and providing transport.
The day cares manager, Karen Murdoch, explained the importance of St. David’s Bradbury Day Centre, “A lot of the time elderly people are forgotten about and not listened to, I think by providing the day centre, we’re providing a safe place where they can come, they can maybe meet up with people they have lost touch with”.
Karen Murdoch joined the day care in 2001 and since then they have doubled in size, bringing in over 20 people a day.
Karen highlighted, “You have people that hadn’t actually left their room, they weren’t well, they couldn’t leave their house, but because we provide accessible transport, we can provide them with the day care. We have got people fixed with wheelchairs who have mobility issues, because we provide this, they can go out the house and get away from social isolation”.
The inside of St. David's Bradbury Day Centre
The day I visited there was live music throughout the day. Speaking to elderly members of the day care, they all explained how they could not live without St David’s Bradbury Day Centre, clearly being the centre of all their lives.
In 2002, the day care raised money to build two disabled toilets and refurbished the entire building, gaining a large donation from the National Lottery. As of 2011, due to large demand, they opened their doors 7 days a week.
“We do a lot of fundraising”, Karen explained, “Last year for example, all the staff took part in a sponsored walk, walking every area that our transport covers”.
With fundraising always being a concern, the day care seems to be comfortable, offering free trips to their members by money raised.
“We do outings, we’ve got barge trips coming up. We’ve been to Brin Chapel, we were on a steam train in Bonnet. We’ve done it all”.
With the day centre constantly looking for new ways to improve their service, there aren’t enough facilities like St. David’s Bradbury Day Centre but with dreams from Karen of opening another centre, the future is looking brighter for elderly loneliness and isolation.
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