Dunbar Cottage Hospital has its origins in the Battery Hospital, a small military hospital which functioned during the First World War. At the end of the war, local doctors and others decided to utilise the building to found a cottage hospital. Dunbar and District Cottage Hospital opened in July 1919 and continued to operate in the Battery Hospital building until December 1926. Funds were raised to purchase a larger building and in 1927, the managers acquired Yorke Lodge. The house was altered and opened as a cottage hospital in May 1927.

On transfer to the National Health Service in 1948, the hospital became part of the East Lothian Hospitals Board of Management, under the South Eastern Hospital Board (see LHB17). At this time its name was changed to Dunbar Cottage Hospital; its bed complement was 13. The hospital closed in March 1973 when hospital services in Dunbar were centralised at Belhaven Hospital. The building has since been used as a holiday home for patients. At the reorganisation of the National Health Service in 1974, the hospital became part of the North Lothian District of Lothian Health Board (see LHB27).

A brief history of the hospital will be found in the 1948 Annual Report (LHB18/2/33). Copies of press cuttings and notes relating to East Lothian Hospitals will be found at GN79.