Barnett's Close

This image was digitised from Artistic Aberdeen: A Sketch Book (1932) by W. S. Percy.

The book describes the scene as follows:

"Barnett's Close. This little backwater, which may soon disappear under the new clearance scheme, lies beyond the north end of the Guestrow and at the lower end gives on to Flourmill Brae. The trees on the right-hand side have always given the close in spring and summer the appearance of a little oasis in the drab desert of noisome slum. They are set in the courtyard of the Aberdeen Dispensary and Vaccine Institution, which was inaugurated in 1823 for the purpose of supplying advice and medicine to the sick poor. The tower is that of St. Nicholas which surmounts the East and West-City-Churches."