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33

4-5 Mackie Place, Aberdeen, c.1870. The street was named after Robert Mackie, a skinner who was Convener of the Incorporated Trades. At No.6 there was a haunted house known as the 'The Castle'. The Denburn flows past the back of the building. When first built, the address was 'The Galleries'.

42

Mackie Place, Aberdeen, c.1870. The street was named after Robert Mackie, a skinner who was Convener of the Incorporated Trades. When first built, the address was 'The Galleries'. At No.6 there was a haunted house known as the 'The Castle'. The Denburn flows past the back of the building.

50

Lodge Walk which ran from Castle Street to Queen Street dates back to 1754 when the Aberdeen Lodge moved into Chambers at the New Inn. The jail for Aberdeen was at one time the Tolbooth, the spire of which can be seen at the centre of the photograph.

125

This rather plain building which stood in Schoolhill was the old Grammar School. It was closed as a school in 1863, when the new school in Skene Street was opened. The building was demolished c.1882/3. The Grammar School seems to date back to the 13th century with successive buildings on this site. Pupils were taught Latin, Greek and English grammar with the aim of preparing them for entry to university. One of the most famous pupils here was Lord Byron, who attended from the age of 7 in 1795 for 4 years. The site was later occupied partly by The Robert Gordon University buildings.

147

Local historian A.G. Duthie has been in touch to identify this image as the most easterly point of the Old Deeside Road. The photograph is taken from the position of the modern day junction of Great Southern Road and Holburn Street. The house in the background is still visible today. In his book The Old Deeside Road, G.M. Fraser writes, "The commencement of the old road at Hardgate is still, fortunately, to be seen, near Fonthill Road, at the group of ruinous houses connected with what was long known as Palmer's Brewery. The 'lie' of the old houses at the back of the brewery shows the run of the old road, two of the small, dilapidated buildings being clearly the eastmost houses of the old road just where it touched the Hardgate." (p. 19) This scene was photographed for Aberdeen Public Library on 6th July 1917 by Mr. James Ritchie.

193

This 1930s photograph shows the Shuttle Lane slum clearance area situated between East North Street and Frederick Street, before the families were rehoused on new estates. These houses were typical of the cramped, overcrowded tenements to be found in most Scottish cities. Large families would be crammed into 1 or 2 rooms. There might have been a shared toilet on the landings or more commonly outside in the back yard. Infectious diseases such as diptheria and scarlet fever could be spread rapidly with such close contact of families, and infant mortality was high. There was often no drying green so many tenements had iron washing poles which could be slid out of windows when needed. Each family would have their allocated day to use the wash house. Washing clothes was a laborious affair as the mother, maybe with the assistance of an older daughter, would stoke and light the boiler, and trek back and forth with water from an outside tap. Washing would be done by hand and if the weather was bad, then it would have to be hung inside in the kitchen to dry in the heat of the coal fire. However, it seemed that community spirit was warm and close neighbours helped each other in times of crisis. This was a bond that would be broken when families were rehoused in the modern housing estates.

322

The Gaelic Chapel was founded in the 18th century in response to the increasing numbers of Highlanders who came to the city in search of work. At first, they held services in the East Church of St. Nicholas but, in the 1790s, they obtained ground in the area between Belmont Street and Back Wynd, now known as Gaelic Lane. The opening services in the new church were conducted on 30th August 1795. In 1843, at the Disruption, the whole congregation followed their minister, Rev. Hugh Mackenzie, into the Free Church. By 1882, the church had become old and delapidated and needed so much renovation that the congregation decided to move. The property was disposed of and was used as a printing office by G. & W. Fraser for a number of years. The congregation moved to a church on Dee Street which had become vacant on the disbanding of the United Free Methodists and it was named St. Columba United Free Church. In 1907, they amalgamated with the High United Free Church and moved to their church at the junction of Belmont Street and Schoolhill.

336

The carcase of a whale stranded in the estuary of the Tay was taken to Aberdeen to be exhibited in an enclosure on the Inches near the Goods Station. The arrival of this monster came to the attention of John Struther, Chair of Anatomy at Aberdeen University, who took the whale back to Marschal College to skin and eventually put together an articulated skeleton which now reposes in Dundee Museum.

354

This image shows at the left hand side, a massive stone coffin which stood for many years at the back of tenements at Flourmill Brae. It was brought to the public's attention in 1926 when the area was subject to the Town Council's slum clearance scheme. The coffin consisted of granite slabs blackened and cracked through time. It was 5 and a half feet long, two feet wide and two feet deep. The sides and ends were held together by iron clamps and the lid was cemented on. The belief was that the coffin contained the remains of Mary Bannerman, one of the Bannermans of Elsick and married to George Leslie, Laird of Findrassie, near Elgin who died in 1692. However when the coffin was eventually opened it was empty apart from black earth. It was suggested that the slabs may have protected her coffin at some time and that the actual coffin and her remains had been removed to one of the city's graveyards. Silver City Vault user Ed Fowler has researched its location using historic maps and suggests that the stone sarcophagus was likely at the end of Quaker's Court near the Friends Meeting House, to the rear of the tenements looking onto Flourmill Brae.

382

A bell from St. Nicholas Church, 1887. To commemorate Queen Victoria's Jubilee, the citizens of Aberdeen purchased a peal of bells from Belgium. In due course the bells arrived at Aberdeen Goods Station, where they were loaded on to lorries to parade the main streets of the city on their way to Back Wynd.

392

Many thanks to Silver City Vault users Dr Mike Mitchell and Brian Kennedy for providing us with information on this photo. It shows the no. 27 tram on Victoria Road with the wall of Balnagask House in the background. The Balnagask Mains farm is partially visible to the left of the tram. The St. Fittick's Road terminus of the Torry Route is located further along Victoria Road. The female conductor indicates the photo was taken during the Great War. The tram waits to depart for Bridge Street.

416

Provost Skene's House from the South. The earliest portion of the house dates back to 1545. The picture gallery c.1626 contains important religious paintings.

424

The Green. The house occupied by John Buchan, baker, at the foot of the Back Wynd stairs leading up to Union Street was demolished in 1914. In the late seventeenth century the house was owned by George Aedie. Although Boots the Chemist have since relocated elsewhere, the stairs which replaced these are still often referred to as the Boots Stairs because there was an entrance to their premises on the left. The golden teapot sign that belonged to John Adam's tea and coffee shop disappeared when the shop closed. Silver City Vault user Ed Fowler investigated the 1904 Post Office directory for Aberdeen to discover more information about the businesses visible in the image. John Adam's premises, with its golden teapot at 64 The Green, can be see on the far right. The tea merchant lived in Hammerfield House, 349 Great Western Road. The next two entrances to the left, 66 and 68, are for the tenements above the shops. To the left of them at 70 The Green is a drapers called P. & C. Adams. The business also had premises at 47 George Street.

502

A Leith registered fifie leaving Aberdeen Harbour. The white building seen behind the sails is the Round House, the Harbour Master's office, on the New Quay at Fittie. The fifie was a fast wind-powered sailing boat favoured for herring fishing on much of Scotland's east coast from the 1850s until well into the 20th century. Its main features were the vertical stem (front) and stern (back) and the wide beam (width) making them stable in the water. Fifies had two masts, a main dipping lugsail and a mizzen sail. Fifie's were increasingly decked following the recommendations of Captain Washington's 1849 report into the Moray Firth fishing disaster. See SCRAN's webpage on Scottish sail powered fishing boats for more information on the subject. The Tidal Harbour is in the background, beyond the landing stage of Pocra Quay's Lower Basin.

596

The Back Wynd stair is so named because, before the making of Union Street, the Back Wynd came right down from Schoolhill to The Green. The stairway was re-designed in the 1930s.

652

Aberdeen Football Club's open top bus parade of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983. The photograph looks north west across Union Street towards its junction with Union Terrace. Aberdeen defeated Real Madrid 2-1 in the final held in Gothenburg, Sweden on 11th May 1983. The conquering heroes landed, cup in hand, at Aberdeen Airport at 14.40 the next day. The team received a rousing reception and were given a celebratory cake on arrival from an offshore catering company. It was then on to the open top bus for the journey from Dyce to Pittodrie. Grampian Fire Brigade lined-up their engines outside their Anderson Drive headquarters as a unique guard of honour for the team as they headed for the city centre. As shown here, the city streets were packed with fans of all ages, including some who had travelled back from Gothenburg. Lord Provost Alex Collie, the Queen Mother and Margaret Thatcher all provided messages of congratulations. Celebrations ended at a teeming Pittodrie. Aberdeen FC had another triumphant tour through the city centre only 10 days later after they beat Rangers 1-0 in the Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park. The match was on the Saturday 21st May and the parade in Aberdeen was the next day.

687

This view shows the narrow congested Exchequer Row, around 1900. The Balmoral style tower of the Salvation Army Citadel, opened in 1896, is seen in the distance with the Market Cross surrounded by an ongoing market. Exchequer Row (first mentioned in 1350) was a short street connecting the Shiprow to the Castlegate, and on its right side, were a number of courts leading into an area crammed with insanitary dwellings which were later demolished. It was popularly supposed that the name Exchequer Row derived from the Aberdeen Mint which stood in the area. However, it comes from the name of the Royal Customs House - the Skakkarium, dating back to the 14th century.

792

A photograph showing 13 Skene Square in the late 19th century. This tenement is thought to be the birthplace of the genre and portrait painter John Phillip (1817-1867). The image is included as a plate in Historical Aberdeen: the Castle and the Castle-hill, the Snow Church, the Woolmanhill and neighbourhood, the Guestrow by G. M. Fraser (1905). Fraser indicates that the tablet that can be seen above the door was put up in memory of John Phillip by his friend William Brodie (1815-1881), the sculptor. Fraser elaborates as follows: "The first plate on the house, 13 Skene Square, was placed there by William Brodie, the sculptor. that house was pulled down six years ago, but fortunately Mr George Watt, architect, the proprietor of the house erected on the spot, has, with much public spirit, placed a bronze tablet on the new house telling that Phillip's house stood on that site. I wish we could be absolutely certain that Phillip was born here. There can be no doubt that he lived here as a child, but it suggestive that in the detailed notices of Phillip in the Aberdeen papers at the time of his death, it was said that he was born in Windy Wynd, where his father was a shoemaker. See Aberdeen Journal, 6th March, 1867; Aberdeen Free Press, 1st March, 1867.

795

This rather plain building which stood in Schoolhill and was demolished about 1882/3 was the old Grammar School. It was closed as a school in 1863 when the new school in Skene Street was opened. The Grammar School seems to date back to the 13th century with successive buildings on this site. Pupils were taught Latin, Greek and English grammar with the aim of preparing them for entry to university. One of the more famous pupils here was Lord Byron, who attended from the age of 7 in 1795 for 4 years. The site is now partly occupied by buildings occupied by The Robert Gordon University.

850

Aerial view of Sandilands Chemical Works. Some of the houses on Garvock Wynd have disappeared compared to an earlier aerial view. In the 1930s, the first S.A.I manager, Mr. Bremner, was appointed at the beginning of the end of the Miller era. S.A.I was formed in 1928, part of I.C.I. agricultural division (I.C.I. owned 51%), by combining firms such as J. Miller and Co. in Aberdeen, Milne in Dyce and firms in Carnoustie, Ayr, Edinburgh, Glasgow, etc.

857

The new phosphate store (capacity 20,000 tons) at Sandilands Chemical Works, built next to the Garvock Wynd boundary wall. The phosphate rock came into Aberdeen from the Pacific Islands and Russia by ship to be unloaded at International Quay and then transferred to Sandilands by lorry. The lorries then tipped their loads into an underground hopper and conveyor system through a grid opening at ground level. The phosphate was then lifted by an elevator to an overhead conveyor from which it was tipped into the store. The material was then trimmed using a bulldozer. One operator was was responsible for the operation of unloading the phosphate including the trimming operation. The phosphate was removed from the store by means of a mechanical shovel and used in the production of phosphoric acid.

894

Correction Wynd.

908

Back Wynd after a fire after Charles Siddon's premises, showing St. Nicholas Churchyard in the foreground.