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Rubislaw Quarry, Aberdeen
885 This photograph of Rubislaw Quarry was probably taken some time in the 1880s. At the top of the image can be seen a variety of mechanical lifting devices, thus dating the illustration prior to the introduction of steam cranes and Blondins For over 200 years this quarry provided much of the granite evident in the city landscape of today. The granite was also used for tombstones, shop-fronts and street paving both within and outwith the city boundries. The quarry was nearly 500 feet deep and 900 feet by 750 feet at the top. Rural landscape
1670 This image has not yet been indexed. Use the Comments button below the image to enter information about the image.
Please note: we will not include any personal information provided unless you indicate that you wish to be acknowledged. The standard form for crediting your information is (name, place) e.g. (John Smith, Aberdeen). Braeriach
1882 Braeriach, in the western Cairngorms, is the third highest mountain in the British Isles. Loch Avon and Ben Macdui
2014 A general view showing Ben Macdui, Britain's second highest mountain, rising out of Loch Avon in the Cairngorms. Treasure 31: Hays' Isometrical View of Aberdeen 1850
2586 In September 1850 an advert appeared in the local papers of Aberdeen for "Hays' Isometrical View of Aberdeen, giving a Distinct and Correct View of the Whole City and Environs". We hold copy of the plan from 1850 in our Local Studies collection.
The plan was available to purchase for 3s. 6d. and measured 34 inches by 19 inches. Carvers and gilders, J. & J. Hays, had premises at 2 Market Street where they also sold prints and optical instruments. At the bottom left of the image we see the words George Wilson, Delt. (abbreviation of delineator, i.e. the artist). George Wilson was to find fame a few years later as George Washington Wilson when he became one of Scotland's premier photographers.
George Washington Wilson
George Washington Wilson was born in 1823 at Waulkmill of Carnousie in Banffshire and left school at 12 years of age to be an apprentice carpenter. He practised his artistic skills by drawing portraits of friends and neighbours and, after training at art schools in Edinburgh and London, he returned to Aberdeen to become an art teacher and portrait painter.
By the late 1840's Wilson was attracted by the work of Fox Talbot in the new art of photography and after initial experiments with a homemade camera, he advertised a business offering photographic portraits before eventually expanding into landscape photography.
A Bird's Eye View of History
Wilson created this panoramic view of the city by making numerous sketches from the roofs of high buildings and then merging them into one comprehensive drawing. We are looking north across the city from the harbour with Union Street running horizontally across the centre and Old Aberdeen in the far distance. We can see how small the city actually was at this time - open fields are visible just to the north of the west end of Union Street.
A key to the most prominent buildings was provided and it is interesting to see which buildings have survived until today, often with additions, and which had yet to be built. Robert Gordon's Hospital (now College), Marischal College, and various churches including the Triple Kirks and St Nicholas East and West are all still standing but the West Prison, Castlehill Barracks and the Poorhouse have been demolished.
Bird's Eye View 1889
In December 1889, the Aberdeen Free Press offered its readers an updated version of the Bird's Eye View as a supplement to their newspaper. Numerous changes to the landscape of the city had taken place since Wilson's view. S.S. Intaba
2702 A postcard showing the launch of the steamship Intaba on 6th September 1910. The ship was constructed by Hall, Russell & Company at their York Street yards for John T. Rennie, Son and Company of Aberdeen and London. The launch was watched by a crowd of thousands.
The Intaba was the largest vessel built in Aberdeen at the time. It was 387 feet in length and weighted 4,832 tons. It was designed to transport passengers and cargo, initially between London and the province of Natal in the Union of South Africa. It could accommodate 70 first class passengers and 60 in second class. The ship's name means mountain in Zulu.
The Intaba and passenger liners like it were fundamental to continuing the British colonisation of southern Africa following the Second Boer War (1899-1902). In May 1910 the British Government had unified its existing and newly acquired regional colonies into the Union of South Africa.
The Intaba went on to have a long and varied career, including working trade and pilgrimage routes. It sailed for 43 years, under various names and owners, and in many different parts of the world, before its eventual demolition in Belgium in 1953.
The Aberdeen Built Ships website (link here) gives considerable detail on the ship's history and states that it was renamed twice; as the Waitomo in 1916 and the Englestan in 1927.
Correspondent Ed Fowler notes that the new ship is being maneuvered primarily by two steam paddle tugs, one on either side, and that a smaller screw steamer tug is also in attendance. He suggests one of the paddle tugs may by the Fairweather. It was built by Richard Stobbs, North Sheilds, in 1871 and was stranded in the entrance to Aberdeen Harbour in 1912. Castle Fraser
4209 A photograph showing the round tower and east wing of Castle Fraser.
Historic Environment Scotland on their CANMORE website state that "the Round Tower provides an excellent viewing platform of the landscape in all directions (although even from here Bennachie cannot be seen, contrary to some 19th century pictures of the Castle). The elevated position allows the topographic setting of the Castle and its designed landscape to be appreciated."
This image likely dates from the 1970s. It comes from a collection of slides donated to Aberdeen City Libraries by Aberdeen City Council's publicity department. Treasure 24: Aberdeen Mechanics Institute
195 2015 marks 170 years since the founding stone of Aberdeen Mechanics' Institute was laid. The history of this well-known building in Aberdeen's landscape has however often been forgotten. We hold a small collection of posters and flyers relating to the Institute and its courses and lectures in our Local Studies collection.
The School of Arts of Edinburgh, established in 1821, was the world's first Mechanics' Institute. Two years later, the Aberdeen Mechanics' Institute was established "for the purpose of affording to Mechanics, and others employed during the day, the means of acquiring such knowledge as may be of practical utility to them in their several professions, or which may be useful for cultivating their minds by extending their acquaintance with the phenomena of nature and the arts of life" (A. Yeats, Secretary. Aberdeen Journal, 14 February 1844).
The Mechanics' Institute soon became a very important educational force in the city. It also provided educational advantages for those who otherwise would never have had the opportunity or the means of acquiring them.
Initially a place of entertainment, the Mechanics' Institute subsequently became a public library on the adoption of the Public Libraries Act (1884). The Library was the most valuable asset of the institution and was viewed as a necessity, providing significant educational opportunities to its members.
For a period of nearly 60 years, the Mechanics Institute played a major role in influencing the culture and education of the people of Aberdeen.
See the whole digital exhibition (the link will open in a new browser window). Treasure 54: On the Planting of Trees in Towns
229 Aberdeen was something of a pioneer when it came to the planting of street trees in Scotland. An article on the subject in the Aberdeen Journal from 1905 states: "As is constantly remarked by visitors, Aberdeen has great reason to be proud of its trees. In some respects, it can, in this direction, show the way to other Scottish cities."
Alongside St. Andrews, Aberdeen led the way in the extensive and effective planting of trees on city streets. This was largely due to the work of Aberdeen's first park superintendent, Robert Walker. The 1905 article states: "To those who know Mr Walker only as the busy man in charge of Victoria and Westburn Parks, the Union Terrace Gardens, the Links, and the grounds of Robert Gordon's College, the fact of his being an author may be new, but it is something to which Mr Walker can look back with pride, because the publication of 'On the Planting of Trees in Towns' was the means of stimulating the movement for tree-planting, not only in Aberdeen, but also in a good many more places in Scotland."
Walker's book, printed in 1890 at the University of Aberdeen, consists of two papers read before The North of Scotland Horticultural Association in 1889. The volume was issued by the two Aberdeen members of Mr Ruskin's Guild of Saint George after a strong request to publish was made by those unable to attend Walker's lectures. The book argues that trees should be planted not just in parks, but in city streets too: "The slight good effected by fine parks placed here or there towards the outskirts of a city is as nothing to what might be carried out by so planning and planting streets and roads, that the air might be comparatively pure and free, and the eye refreshed with green at almost every point."
The Aberdeen Journal states that the value of the book is "very much materially enhanced by illustrations of a number of our best-known trees from drawings from Sir George Reid, lithographed by Messrs Thomson and Duncan." George Reid (1841-1913) was a nationally renowned Aberdeen-born painter. A year after the publication of the book, in 1891, he was elected as the president of the Royal Scottish Academy and knighted by Queen Victoria. In 1905 he played a significant role in the extension of Aberdeen Art Gallery, determining the layout and contents of the building. He died at his home in Somerset in 1913 and was buried in St Peter's Cemetery, Aberdeen.
On the publication of Walker's book a copy was send to keen arboriculturist and habitual Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. The 1905 Aberdeen Journal article reports that, in his acknowledgement of the gift, Gladstone wrote that "he would read the book with the greatest pleasure, the subject being one in which he took a special interest." At the time, the post card with acknowledgment could still be seen framed in Mr Walker's house. The Journal article also states that the book has been unobtainable for a long time but that a copy is available to view at the Reference Department of the Public Library. Over a hundred years later this is still correct and the item now sits in our Local Studies collection.
"Trees not only afford shade and shelter," states Walker's book "but adorn the landscape and purify the air. They improve the heart as well as the taste; they refresh the body and enlighten the spirit. And the more refined the taste is, the more exquisite is the gratification that may be enjoyed from every leaf-building tree." Treasure 81: John Morgan Plans
293 In this year of Innovation, Architecture and Design, we feature original building plans which provide us with an insight into the development of Aberdeen in the late 19th century. The plans were designed by builder John Morgan (1844-1907), who worked with many well-known city architects.
John Morgan's memoirs are held in our collections and the 282-page document provides a first-hand account of the builder's career. Along with his memoirs, we hold a bound volume of Morgan's original plans which were donated by a tobacconist named James Yule Keswick, husband of John Morgan's eldest daughter, Elisabeth Jane.
Together, the plans and memoirs reveal the personality of an important figure from our city's past, and map the changing landscape of Victorian Aberdeen as witnessed by Morgan himself.
Find out more about John Morgan and the many buildings he constructed in the Treasures from our Collections interactive exhibition on the touchscreens in our libraries. Treasure 89: Queen Mary's Dolls' House Books
301 Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a highly extravagant and detailed piece of miniature architecture and design built on a scale of 1:12 that comprises over 40 rooms, four elevations, two staircases, two working lifts, hot and cold running water in all five bathrooms, water closets that flushed, electric light, a cellar, a garage and a garden designed by the famous landscape gardener Gertrude Jekyll. It was commissioned by a friend of the Queen and cousin of King George V, Princess Marie Louise. The idea came about in Spring 1921, and at the private viewing of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Princess Marie Louise approached the noted architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, with the proposal to design and build a dolls' house fit for a queen. The house was to be a gift from the nation - recognising Queen Mary's charitable works throughout the Great War.
In our collections we hold a concise two-volume account of the dolls' house, gifted to the library by Queen Mary in 1930. The first volume, The Book of the Queen's Dolls' House, was edited by the poet A. C. Benson and noted architectural writer, Sir Lawrence Weaver. The second volume is focused entirely on one room of the dolls' house and its contents - the Library. The Queen's Dolls' House Library is edited by the essayist and biographer E.V. Lucas.
View our Treasures exhibition on the interactive screen to peek inside the dolls' house and find out more about the nation's gift to Queen Mary. Treasure 94: William Beattie's Scotland Illustrated (1838)
313 To celebrate the anniversary of Scotland's National Bard Robert Burns on 25 January, we are showcasing a beautifully illustrated work in two volumes on the history and landscape of Scotland by the physician, poet and writer William Beattie (1793-1875).
Volume I includes descriptions and illustrations of Berwickshire, District of Lothian, Edinburgh, Linlithgow, Stirlingshire, Ayrshire, the Counties of Dumfries and Roxburgh, and Roxburghshire.
Volume II describes the regions of Perthshire, Inverness-shire, Argyllshire, Dunbartonshire, or, The Lennox, Lanarkshire, the Counties of Fife, Aberdeen, and Moray, and Sutherland.
The work includes 121 engravings on steel, from original drawings, chiefly by the architect and artist Thomas Allom (1804-1872) and the topographical artist William Henry Bartlett (1809-1854). Poetry is interspersed throughout the volume is by the author.
The whole work is reflective of the romantic ideology of the power of nature to inspire the poet or artist with ideas of the beautiful, sublime and picturesque.
In his introduction to Scotland Illustrated, Beattie presents to us a poet's Scotland - a land steeped in its mysterious folkloric past and claimed by Beattie as the "Fairy Land of modern times" - influenced in no small part by the great romantic works of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns.
To see more beautiful examples of 'picturesque' landscape engravings of Scotland, have a browse in the Treasures from our Collections interactive exhibition. Treasure 123: George Washington Wilson in the Highlands and Islands
346 In July 1860, Wilson, accompanied by his friend George Walker, set off on a photographic tour of the west coast of Scotland. They travelled to Inverness, then through the Caledonian Canal. Walker expressed his delight at these new experiences "as we proceeded the scenery got always grander, the mountains loftier and more magnificent". The lack of suitable transport and accommodation had ensured that this wild and mountainous terrain was still largely unexplored by the mid-1800s and had not yet been exploited as a tourist destination. When Wilson began to visit these more remote areas they were still well off the main tourist track but his photographs which captured the grandeur of the landscape brought them to more general attention and increased their popularity for visitors. Although Wilson's views of the spectacular Highland scenery are impressive, his skilful portraits of the people and their way of life provide a valuable record of these remote areas in the late 1800s.
See more of these fascinating photographs in the Treasures from our Collections interactive exhibition on the touchscreen. |