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Shiprow
1276 Shiprow, looking North to Provost Ross' House, one of only two surviving ancient lodgings in the city. Originally built in 1593, the arcade is early 18th century. Acquired by Aberdeen City Council in the 1950s from ABC Cinemas, by whom it was to have been made into staff accommodation for their adjacent Regal, a plan halted by the outbreak of war in 1939. Now incorporated into Aberdeen Maritime Museum. Johnston Gardens
1776 Secluded in the West End of the city off Viewfield Road, Johnston Gardens are a hidden gem. The Aberdeen Journal captioned a photograph of the gardens in their paper from 23 August 1939; "The Beauty of Johnston Gardens, a public pleasance, property of the City of Aberdeen, of the situation of which one town councillor at this week's Council meeting confessed complete ignorance." (page 12) This photograph taken from the narrow walk-bridge shows the large duck pond to the east of the gardens. This wooden bridge visible was later replaced by one made primarily of metal. Aberdeen Maternity Hospital
2409 A photograph of the new Aberdeen Maternity Hospital buildings at Foresterhill. The Aberdeen Maternity Hospital joined the Joint Hospital Scheme late after encouragement from the Medical Officer of Health, other concerned bodies and public opinion. The hospital's site at Foresterhill was gifted by the University of Aberdeen's Medical School and the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Building of the new maternity hospital began in 1934 after being delayed by a lack of funds. It was opened in 1937 with 32 beds at a cost of £52,000. An extra 8 beds were added in 1939 by means of internal reconstruction and in 1941 an antenatal annexe, built by the Town Council and joined to the Maternity Hospital by a corridor, opened with 28 beds.
For more details on the Aberdeen Maternity Hospital please see 'History of the Aberdeen Joint Hospital Scheme and Site' by N. J. Logie and 'The History of Midwifery in Aberdeen' by G. P. Milne, both in Aberdeen Medico-Chirurgical Society: A Bicentennial History 1789-1989 (1989).
This image comes from the hospital's annual report for 1939. Aberdeen Local Studies hold these reports from 1912 to 1947. Union Street (looking east)
2704 This image of a busy Union Street is from an old postcard created by Aberdeen City Council's Department of Development & Tourism.
The information on the rear of the card states that the image looks to the east, towards "Aberdeen's main shopping centre". This most likely refers to the Trinity Centre that can be seen on the mid-right.
The Trinity Centre is located on the site of the second Trinity Hall, home of the Incorporated Trades organisation.
Constructed in 1846, the second Trinity Hall was largely demolition in 1967 when the Incorporated Trades moved to their current location on Holburn Street. The distinctive frontage on Union Street, visible in this picture, was however retained.
The Trinity Centre opened in October 1984 and this image likely dates from the mid-to-late 1980s. Aberdeen Cinemas: Casino
3410 An Aberdeen Journals Archive photograph of the Casino cinema in around 1963.
The Casino cinema was opened on Wales Street on 7th February 1916 by John Peter Kilgour, a dealer in various waste materials. It had close competition with Bert Gate's Star Picture Palace just around the corner on Park Street. Michael Thomson in The Silver Screen in the Silver City describes the Casino as the second of Aberdeen's purpose-built picture halls. It and the "Starrie" served the population of the city's east end for many years.
The Casino was built on the site of Kilgour's factory yards. The architects for the project were George Sutherland and Clement George. The building's "Spanish villa" design is described by Thomson as unique for Aberdeen and highly unusual throughout Scotland. One distinctive feature was the low square tower at the Park Street side of the building that was topped by a red-tiled concave pyramidal roof. Thomson writes that features of the building combined to "bring a welcome splash of colour and gaiety to an otherwise drab corner of the city."
Following the death of John Peter Kilgour in 1920, the running of the Casino and his waste business was taken over by his son, Ormande L. Kilgour.
In the silent era the venue was a stronghold of cine-variety, showing all manner of performances in-between film screenings. In February 1936 the cinema celebrated its 20th birthday and a cake was cut by Kilgour and one the Casino's oldest patrons, a Mrs Stewart.
In November 1939 Bert Gates and Aberdeen Picture Palaces bought a controlling interest share in the Casino. The Beach Boulevard, which opened on 25th May 1959, ran directly outside the cinema and gave the Casino a prominent location. In March of that year the cinema was given a thorough renovation.
Despite its new prominent location and recent renovation, the Casino closed down as a cinema on Saturday 3rd October 1959. A spokesperson for the Donald Cinemas Group stated in the Evening Express at the time that the closure was due to the housing in the area being pulled down and people moving to new estates. Michael Thomson suggests that the proximity of the relatively new first-run Regal in Shiprow might also have drawn away the hoped-for holiday crowds from the Casino.
In 1961 the empty Casino was sold to local bookmakers James Rennie and Arthur Forbes to be used as a bingo hall. This was at the height of bingo's popularity and the Casino proved too small. The bingo operation was moved to the Kingsway Cinema which had showed its final film, Warlord of Crete on 3rd February 1962.
The area around the Casino was earmarked for redevelopment by Aberdeen Town Council. The cinema building was compulsorily purchased and, after spending some time as a store, was demolished at the same time as the Star in 1971. The site is now occupied by a residential development.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson]
Image © Aberdeen Journals Ltd. Aberdeen Cinemas: Coliseum / New Kinema / Belmont
3437 The cinema on Belmont Street had operated as the Belmont from 24th June 1935. On 4th January 1938 it was announced that James F. Donald (Aberdeen Cinemas) Ltd. had acquired a controlling share in Caledonian Theatres, who ran the Majestic on Union Street and the Belmont. Michael Thomson credits Caledonian Theatres' financial difficulties at this time to their inability to book the best films.
An organisation known as the Ship Contractors' and Ship Wrights' Association had a right to sell bond on the Belmont Street property that included both the cinema and the headquarters of the Aberdeen Trades Council. From 1946 onwards the aforementioned association tried to sell the property and this was contested by the Trades Council. This fight went all the way to the House of Lords but the Trades Council's appeal was dismissed in January 1949.
Caledonian Theatres had attempted to purchase the building outright from the Ship Contractors' and Ship Wrights' Association but this sale was interrupted by the Aberdeen Sheriff Court following an appeal from the Trades Council. In the end the building was sold to the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) in February 1952 to be converted into their new Aberdeen headquarters.
Following this sale, the Belmont cinema closed on down 29th March 1952. Its final film was The Steel Helmet an American film, directed by Samuel Fuller, about the Korean War.
In mid-1956 NAAFI moved its accounts operations out of Aberdeen and put the block up for sale. On 22nd April 1958 the Clydesdale Supply Co. Ltd. moved from premises at 111/2 Rose Street to the former Trades Hall and cinema at 49 Belmont Street. The large premises were employed as the warehouse for the company's wide range of clothing, household goods, furniture, radios, televisions and radiograms. Clydesdale appear to have occupied the building until around 1962.
This Aberdeen Journals Archive photograph from 1966 likely shows the building when it was unoccupied.
During the early 1980s the building was used as a carpet showroom. In October 1994 plans were announced by Aberdeen City Council to create a media centre at 49 Belmont Street. This included three cinema screens, educational facilities and a café bar. The building was converted for this purpose but funding could not be secured for its operation.
The revamped cinema finally opened as The Belmont Picturehouse in September 2000 and was operated by the Picturehouse company. This firm was later bought by Cineworld and had to relinquish the lease on The Belmont in adherence with competition law. In 2014, the Centre for the Moving Image was selected to take on its management and the much-loved cinema became the Belmont Filmhouse.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson]
Image © Aberdeen Journals Ltd. Newhills Convalescent Home and Sanitorium
3810 A group portrait of patients and staff at the Newhills Convalescent Home and Sanatorium in the 1930s.
The Newhills Convalescent Home was founded by Christian Catherine Smith in 1874. She was the wife of Rev. James Smith, the minister of Newhills Parish Church. The couple lived in the nearby church manse. Christian grew up in North Ayrshire and demonstrated concern for the welfare of others from a young age.
Christian married James Smith on 14th April 1869 and it was shortly after arriving in the parish that she recognised the potential of the place as somewhere ill people could come to rest and regain their health. The convalescent home was subsequently started at Dykeside Cottage. It was a great success and operated at this location for 7 years.
Annual newspaper reports on the home described its purpose as being for "the benefit of respectable persons in humble life who appear to be failing into dishealth, or are convalescing after non-infectious ailments."
In 1908 Christian Smith stepped down as head of the home due to ill health and was replaced by a publicly elected executive board. This was led for many years by Dr. Walter A. Reid and during his tenure the institute was modernised and extended.
In 1948 the home was incorporated into the National Health Service. Due to issues of staffing and its unsuitability during winter, the decision was taken to close the home. Patients were transferred to other local hospitals and in the same year the home was sold to Aberdeen Town Council.
The buildings were subsequently operated as a home for the elderly and homeless until March 1980 when it was sold into private hands.
After leaving the manse in 1917, Christian Catherine Smith, the founder of the home, lived at 2 West Craibstone Street. She died there on 6th December 1924 aged 81. She was buried at Newhills Church and the then minister Rev. Andrew Currie led a memorial service. He described the Newhills Convalescent Home as "an institution not only for the healing of bodies, but a place for the comfort of hearts and the cure of souls." Christian Smith's name can still be seen today in one of the church's stained-glass windows. 32 Loch Street (Post Office)
4342 A photograph looking south towards the Post Office branch at 32 Loch Street in around 1986 or 1987. Norco House and the Aberdeen Public Soup Kitchen would have been across the road, behind the camera here.
This image is one of a series taken by Aberdeen City Council to record buildings prior to the redevelopment of the area and construction of the Bon Accord shopping centre.
As can be seen below a royal cypher for George VI, this Post Office branch on Loch Street dates from 1939.
Its final day of operation was Monday 13th April 1987. An article covering its closure, to make way for the shopping centre, can be found in the Press & Journal newspaper of that day on page 3.
At its creation this Loch Street branch replaced a Post Office at 242 George Street. Following its closure, the Post Office opened a new branch in the St. Nicholas Centre on Tuesday 15th September 1987 (Press & Journal, 16th September 1987, page 5).
The site shown in the photograph would become the location of part of the Bon Accord Centre's north elevation. Shiprow
111 Shiprow, looking North to Provost Ross' House, one of only two surviving ancient lodgings in the city. Originally built in 1593, the arcade is early 18th century. Acquired by Aberdeen City Council in the 1950s from ABC Cinemas, by whom it was to have been made into staff accommodation for their adjacent Regal, a plan halted by the outbreak of war in 1939. Now incorporated into Aberdeen Maritime Museum. Catalogue of Industry and Art Exhibition
231 The front cover for the catalogue of the 1891-1892 Aberdeen Exhibition of Industry and Art. The event was promoted by the Aberdeen United Trades' Council and held in the Art Gallery and Museum Buildings. It opened to the public on 12 December 1891. This catalogue was printed in Aberdeen by G. Cornwall & Sons (42 to 45 Castle Street). It features a lists of the exhibits and numerous adverts. Treasure 90: Torry and Ferryhill libraries
302 Both Torry and Ferryhill Branch Reading Rooms opened on 19 December 1903 as part of the General Extension Scheme to provide a library presence in what were regarded as outlying areas of the City.
In November 1901 the Council Finance Committee sanctioned the acquisition of a piece of ground at the corner of Victoria Road and Grampian Road where Torry Library would be built. A site was secured at the corner of Fonthill Road and the Hardgate in August 1901 for Ferryhill Library.
Both libraries were supported by Andrew Carnegie who, having previously donated money for the building of the Central Library, promised £1750 for each of the Branch reading rooms.
It was the aim of the Library Committee that the Branches should be "educative and attractive in every sense" and with this in mind the walls were hung with reproductions of works by artist such as Constable, Turner, Joseph Farquharson and others.
The success of the new branches was very apparent from the statistics. In the first nine months of opening, attendance at Torry numbered 31,567 with 63,711 at Ferryhill. Once the delivery stations were set up, book issues (including those for Old Aberdeen) totalled 13,530 volumes of which over 10,000 were fiction. By 1939, Torry and Ferryhill were well on their way to becoming fully established branch libraries.
Take a look at the early history of the libraries in the Treasures exhibition on the interactive screen. Belmont Street
446 This image was digitised from Artistic Aberdeen: A Sketch Book (1932) by W. S. Percy.
The book describes the scene as follows:
"Belmont Street, which leads from Union Street to Schoolhill, is a mixture of the old and the new, and has undergone many changes in recent years. Almost a third of the left-hand side in now occupied by the Central Secondary School and its hall, which was formerly a church. There are still two churches in this short street, with the other two round the Schoolhill corner - which also houses a cinema, the British Broadcasting Corporation's studios, the Aberdeen Trades' Council and Boy Scout headquarters. But the history of the street is largely ecclesiastical, and dates back only about a century and a half." Weigh-house dues and, lodgement of unclaimed goods
472 A broadside from 21st May 1805 detailing an act of the Town Council prohibiting buyers and sellers from weighing their goods privately. This had to be done exclusively at the Weigh-House in accordance with the Town Standard Weights.
This act makes reference to a previous act of the Council, "Table of weigh-house and pack-house dues of the city of Aberdeen." The goods mentioned in this broadside are fleshes (meats), tallow, butter and cheese.
We can understand how relevant this matter was for the Town Council since, as it is stated at the bottom of the document, the announcement was going to be affixed in several public places and published in the Aberdeen Journal. The act is also to be intimated throughout the town by "Tuck of Drum", which presumably refers to a public announcement by town crier type figures.
This broadside was printed by D. Chalmers & Co. |