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Union Terrace and Gardens
412 A postcard image showing Union Terrace Gardens in the centre of Aberdeen.
There are a couple of notable features that might be able to help date the image: there is no bandstand present and the lower, central area in this image is still in the older lay-out with wide dividing paths.
The removal of the bandstand and change of lay-out may have been carried at around the same time. A minute from an Aberdeen Town Council meeting of 21st September 1931, detailing a recommendation from the Links and Parks Committee to the full Council, reads as follows:
"The Committee had before them a report by the Superintendent of the City Parks, in which he points out that he has had the bandstand in Union Terrace Gardens examined, that it is in a bad state of repair, and that he has been informed that the cost of repairing the worn-out parts would be almost equal to the cost of a new stand. He further states that the bandstand has not been used for some years, owing to the noise from the adjoining railway interfering with the performances, and suggests that the stand should be removed, the site and surrounding pathways levelled, covered with soil and sown with grass seed. If this were done, the playing area would be increased by 1,407 square yards, as shown coloured yellow on the plan herewith submitted, thereby giving greater facilities to the large number of children who frequent the Gardens.
"The Committee approved of the report, and beg to recommend that the Council should grant authority to the Superintendent of Parks to have the bandstand removed and the other work carried out as proposed." (Minutes and Proceedings of Town Council, City of Aberdeen, 1930-1931, page 660.
The full Council approved this recommendation from the Links and Parks Committee. In light of this information, the image may date from relatively shortly after September 1931. After the bandstand has been removed but before the ground had been leveled and sown as a single larger grass lawn. Beech-hill Farm
1793 A photograph by James Kellas from the early 1950s, looking north, showing Beech-hill Croft behind allotment gardens. The croft and attached farm were located west of Springbank Cemetery, across Springfield Road.
(Many thanks to A. G. Duthie for identifying the location). Provost William Leslie
2051 A portrait of Provost William Leslie (1802-18/02/1879). He served as Provost of Aberdeen from 1869 to 1874.
Leslie was born in New Deer and worked as an architect and builder. Notable projects included the construction of the North Church in Aberdeen to John Smith's designs in 1829-30 and Castle Newe in 1831 to designs by Archibald Simpson.
He also worked as a railway contractor and granite merchant. More information about Leslie can be read on the Dictionary of Scottish Architects website and in Memorials of the Aldermen, Provosts, and Lord Provosts of Aberdeen, 1272-1893 (1897) by Munro. The Art Gallery Redevelopment
2662 The exterior of the Art Gallery in January 2018. The Art Gallery closed in 2015 for a major £30 million redevelopment. The main contractor on the project is McLaughlin and Harvey. The redesign was approved by councillors in 2013.
For much of the redevelopment the front of the building was covered in scaffolding and a large decorated screen. This image shows the recently re-emerged facade and the new top floor under construction. 229-245 Union Street
2831 A. R. Milne, booksellers, at 229, the entrance to 231A, Charles A. Michie, chemists, at 231 and Milne-Wyllie Building, at 245 Union Street in 1937. 231A was the address of J. B. Rennet, advocate and C. A., Samuel Pope, solicitor, John H. Drummond and the City of Glasgow Friendly and Approved Society.
The Milne-Wyllie Building, at 245, was the address of A. H. L. Mackinnon, architect, A. J. Morrison, architect, Bower & Smith, C. A., Mrs. Smith, apartments, and Mrs. Clara Willis. Aberdeen Cinemas: Regent / Odeon
3417 The Regent was opened as the second, companion cinema of Jack Poole, after his transformation of the Palace on Bridge Place that had opened in 1931. The Justice Mills location was selected and the cinema was constructed on the eastern end of the historic Upper Mill. A cinema was able to utilise the sloping nature of the site in the way few other projects could.
Michael Thomson in Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) states that work progressed on the new cinema at an excellent rate with virtually all material and labour coming from local sources. The sparkling Rubislaw granite frontage was the work of masons Edgar Gauld of Gilcomston Terrace. Wood for the joinery work came from Sweden and Finland.
The Regent was Aberdeen's first all-new cinema since the Torry Picture House a decade before. It was also the first cinema designed by Thomas Scott Sutherland, who had previously been a designer of, and dealer in, houses, notably the granite bungalows of the Broomhill estate.
The impressive new cinema opened on Saturday 27th February 1932, to an audience mostly of guests, with the main feature being a melodrama called Over the Hill. Reporting on the opening, the Evening Express wrote the following:
"Even though Aberdeen has many magnificent edifices, there is nothing quite so distinctive as the modern design of the front of the new Regent. Fine use has been made of straight lines and curves placed in sharp contrast, and the face that looks through the entrance to Justice Mill Lane on Holburn Street has an imposing dignity about it and yet an elusive gaiety in its composition. It is built of grey granite decorated with bands of red terracotta, and a polished black granite base."
The frontage was floodlit by night and outlined by Aberdeen's neon display. Above the gantry was the large, neon "Regent" sign which made the cinema a beacon at night. The Regent and the Palace were then advertised as "Aberdeen's Super Two".
The Regent's manager John K. Stafford Poole, son of Jack Poole, was aged only 21 when the Regent opened and his innovative promotion and displays became a signature of the cinema. The younger Poole regularly invited the Gordon Highlanders to screenings and in return they would afterwards march, pipes a-skirl, through the cinema and along Union Street back to their barracks.
The Regent proved hugely popular and was soon out-performing the Palace. The success of Poole's Regent prompted Aberdeen Picture Palaces to undertake the creation of their own super-cinema, the Capitol, which would open in 1933. The same year also saw the release of King Kong and the publicity stunt of a human dressed as an ape rampaging on the frontage of the Regent.
On 16th July 1936 it was announced that another southern company called County Cinemas had acquired all the Poole picture houses, those in Devonport, Derby and Plymouth, as well as the Palace and Regent in Aberdeen. In 1939 County Cinemas merged with the larger Odeon chain. In July 1940 the "Regent" sign came down to be replaced with one that read "Odeon". As part of this powerful national circuit, the cinema could rival any in Aberdeen for showing major features.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson] Treasure 46: The Aberdeen Herald
217 When the first weekly issue of The Aberdeen's Journal was published by James Chalmers in January 1748 who would have guessed it would still be in production today (admittedly with several changes of title and ownership) as The Press and Journal.
The monopoly of The Aberdeen Journal, as it soon became, remained almost unchallenged throughout the eighteenth century but the nineteenth century saw the publication of several competing newspapers. Most of these were short-lived but included The Aberdeen Herald, and General Advertiser for The Counties of Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, and Kincardineshire, which was published between 1832 and 1876.
We hold the first copy of this weekly newspaper in our collections. It was printed and published by George Cornwall, and was issued on Saturday 1 September 1832. It succeeded an earlier paper called The Aberdeen Chronicle which had been in production since 1806. The Aberdeen Journal was seen then as politically neutral but the Herald is described as Whig-Radical and its opening advertisement states "In fact, the chief object of The Aberdeen Herald will be to obtain a cheap, efficient, and patriotic system of Government".
Since the Herald was published on a Saturday while the Journal appeared on Wednesday, it was able to include articles which would have been old news by the following Wednesday and could also provide updates to news from earlier in the week.
The newspaper cost 7d which was far beyond what an ordinary person could pay and restricted readership to the wealthy. This high cost was a result of taxes imposed by the Stamp Act of 1712 which was not abolished until 1855. Papers could then be bought for 1d and there was freedom to produce mass-circulation newspapers with improved text layout.
The front pages of newspapers, even as recently as the early 1900s, did not contain news stories but were filled with adverts - business, theatrical events, shipping, property and public notices. The issue of The Aberdeen Herald for 21 April 1866 contained an advert explaining the change of name for the town of Inverurie. Local historian, Dr Douglas Lockhart, provides the following account of the town's name change.
The market town of Inverurie was one of the fastest growing places in Aberdeenshire during the mid-nineteenth century when its population increased from 735 in 1821 to 2524 in 1871. Many factors contributed to rapid growth at this time including good communications, initially by turnpike roads and the Aberdeenshire Canal to nearby Port Elphinstone, and from the mid-century it lay astride the railway line between Aberdeen, Elgin and Inverness.
Further advantages were the extensive agricultural surroundings, markets and successful local businesses. Surprisingly Alexander Smith in A New History of Aberdeenshire, which was published in 1875, has little to say about the transformation of the town. However, he wrote a lengthy paragraph to describe how 'INVERURIE was, in former times, written Inneraury, Ennerawrie, and Hennerawie, and latterly Inverury' and he notes that the name meant "the confluence of the river of the margin".
On 5 February 1866 the Council met to discuss what appears to have become a growing problem - mail was being sent to Inveraray in Argyllshire because Inverury was not listed by the Post Office as a Post Town. The solution was simple: "return to the ancient spelling of the Burgh as Inverurie and to memorialise the Postmaster General to have it set down on the Lists as a Post Town". The Postmaster agreed to the name change and the scene was set on 19 April for the Council to discuss advertising the new arrangements. The wording of an advertisement was approved and it was decided to place it in the Edinburgh Gazette, Aberdeen Journal, Aberdeen Free Press, Aberdeen Herald and Banffshire Journal and "to endeavour to get the Railway Company to alter the spelling of the Station in their Tables".
Inverury officially became Inverurie the following day and on 21 April The Aberdeen Herald announced the change of name in the advertising columns of its front page. The Banffshire Journal in addition to printing the advertisement also published a glowing report on building activity in the burgh and noted that "within the memory of living inhabitants [the town] has been thoroughly regenerated".
Aberdeen Local Studies holds files of many local newspapers on microfilm, including the Aberdeen Herald and the Free Press. A digitised partial file is also available on the British Newspaper Archive which can be freely consulted online in the Central Library using your library card. City of Aberdeen. At Aberdeen, the 21st day of February, 1817 years (1 of 2)
511 This is the front page of a two-sided broadside style pamphlet. The back page can be seen here.
This broadside refers to a meeting on 21st February 1817 of Aberdeen's bureaucrats. Attending the meeting were creditors - individuals and organisations providing loans - and their debtors, the treasurers of Aberdeen. The meeting had been called by a letter dated to the 8th February. The Lord Provost, Alexander Fraser (1775-1840), chaired the meeting. The Lord Provost reiterated the contents of the letter, that the treasurers felt bound to provide a detailed statement of their accounts to the creditors. They also iterated their desire to establish an independent committee to assist in the auditing of their accounts.
The treasurers felt it necessary to reassure the attending creditors. The treasurers had previously borrowed money from the creditors to fund the formation of Union Street and King Street. For some years in the run up to this meeting, the treasurers had been unable to pay the creditors the required five-per-cent interest on the money borrowed for this project. (Alexander Munro, Memorials of the Alderman, Provosts, and Lord Provosts of Aberdeen, 1272-1893 (1897), 265-267).
Thus, presumably, the creditors were nervous over the security of their debts. A lack of trust between the creditors and debtors exists. The Lord Provost, speaking on behalf of the debtors, sought to rectify this through making the treasurers scrutable. A motion was moved by a Mr Crombie to give the independent committee (of trustees) the power to sell property belonging to the treasurers in order to pay the treasurers' debts. This motion was unanimously approved by the meeting. The broadside concludes by listing the trustees as treasurers in order to pay the treasurers' debts. City of Aberdeen. At Aberdeen, the 21st day of February, 1817 years (2 of 2)
512 This is the back page of a two-sided broadside style pamphlet. The front page can be seen here.
This broadside refers to a meeting on 21st February 1817 of Aberdeen's bureaucrats. Attending the meeting were creditors - individuals and organisations providing loans - and their debtors, the treasurers of Aberdeen. The meeting had been called by a letter dated to the 8th February. The Lord Provost, Alexander Fraser (1775-1840), chaired the meeting. The Lord Provost reiterated the contents of the letter, that the treasurers felt bound to provide a detailed statement of their accounts to the creditors. They also iterated their desire to establish an independent committee to assist in the auditing of their accounts.
The treasurers felt it necessary to reassure the attending creditors. The treasurers had previously borrowed money from the creditors to fund the formation of Union Street and King Street. For some years in the run up to this meeting, the treasurers had been unable to pay the creditors the required five-per-cent interest on the money borrowed for this project. (Alexander Munro, Memorials of the Alderman, Provosts, and Lord Provosts of Aberdeen, 1272-1893 (1897), 265-267).
Thus, presumably, the creditors were nervous over the security of their debts. A lack of trust between the creditors and debtors exists. The Lord Provost, speaking on behalf of the debtors, sought to rectify this through making the treasurers scrutable. A motion was moved by a Mr Crombie to give the independent committee (of trustees) the power to sell property belonging to the treasurers in order to pay the treasurers' debts. This motion was unanimously approved by the meeting. The broadside concludes by listing the trustees as treasurers in order to pay the treasurers' debts. Aberdeen Harbour plans by John Smeaton
522 A plate showing two plans, titled Plan of the Harbour of Aberdeen as it was in 1769 and Plan of the Harbour with its Alterations, as proposed 1787 by J. Smeaton.
This plate (no. 2, from opposite page 38) features in the book Reports of the late John Smeaton, F.R.S. made on various occasions, in the course of his employment as a civil engineer, volume III, (London, 1812). It accompanies a report by Smeaton about Aberdeen Harbour, dated to 19th February 1770, outlining the engineer's proposed measures, including estimated costs, to prevent the silting of the harbour and improve its access, particularly for larger ships.
The main element of Smeaton's improvements, as proposed in his report and shown on both plans, was the construction of the harbour's North Pier. Completed by around 1780, the pier was subsequently extended first, on the advice of Thomas Telford, between 1810 and 1816 and again between 1869 and 1874.
The shown plans are credited to J. Smeaton, with J. Farey Jun. given as the delineator and W. Lowry as the engraver ("scupl.").
The three volume book contains Smeaton's reports from various engineering projects. A copy of each volume is available in the Local Studies reserve stock at Aberdeen City Libraries. |