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Jack's Brae
710 A photograph looking north west up Jack's Brae, from its junction with Upper Denburn, in the Rosemount area. Jack's Brae was named after the owner of property there. This photograph likely dates from the mid-to-late 19th century.
The Ordnance Survey town plan of Aberdeen, 1:500 scale, surveyed in 1866-67 depicts a "Coffee Roasting and Grinding Works" at the top of Jack's Brae at its junction with Leadside Road. A large chimney of these works can be seen on the right side of this image in the distance.
These works were the premises of John Strachan. In the Aberdeen Post Office Directory for 1867-68, Strachan is described as follows:
"Strachan, John, coffee roaster, coffee, sugar, and sugar grinder, Jack's brae" (page 213).
Aberdeen City Council's Historic Environment Record describes the site thusly:
"Site of meal mills, built in the 18th - 19th Centuries and demolished in the 1980s. The works was two-storey with a basement, comprising a 9-bay range with a single kiln and a three-storey with attic 5 by 6-bay block of later date. There were also two 2-storey store blocks. The mill was originally water powered, later electrically driven. The OS 1st edition map depicts a coffee roasting and grinding works here; they are annotated as corn mills on the OS 25in map published 1924." (link here).
The business was known as John Strachan & Sons and the works as Gilcomston Mill. The business was started in around 1852 and John Strachan was succeeded as its proprietor by his son James Strachan (1838-1914). His obituary can be found in the Evening Express of 28th December 1914, page 5. His son, John Strachan, was later to become the business's managing director. The obituary of this later John Strachan can be found in the Press & Journal of 1st July 1935, page 8.
At the time of writing in 2022, the site is occupied by a residential complex called Strachan Mill Court - no doubt named after the coffee roasting and milling enterprise. Treasure 9: Sketch of Proposed Denburn Gardens
179 The future of Union Terrace Gardens has been the subject of much debate over the years and its original development also led to much discussion in Town Council meetings and in the local newspapers.
In 1868, the architect James Matthews suggested that the area of Union Terrace should be turned into a pleasure ground for the people and the following year this "Sketch of the Proposed Denburn Gardens", drawn by the land surveyor James Forbes Beattie, was published. It includes the area between Belmont Street to Union Terrace and from Union Street to the Royal Infirmary, Woolmanhill.
The gardens are shown laid out with paths and shrubbery but Beattie has also depicted the buildings in the surrounding streets, including the recently completed Belmont Street Congregational Church. Further to the north can be seen the spire and complex of the three churches built for the West, South and East Free Church congregations in 1843-44. The buildings which remain are currently known as the Triple Kirks.
A pedestrian bridge crosses the railway towards Union Terrace and the row of houses known as Denburn Terrace. These were demolished under the City Improvements Scheme of 1883 which eventually led to the construction of Rosemount Viaduct and would have stood on the site of the ornamental plot opposite the Central Library.
This plan acts as a snapshot of the area and provides an interesting comparison with the modern layout of the streets surrounding the Gardens.
After much discussion and negotiation with neighbouring proprietors, the Town Council sanctioned work on laying out the Gardens on the land between the wooded bank at Union Terrace and the railway. Work began in November 1877 and, when the gates were finally opened to the public on 11 August 1879, the band of Gordon's Hospital (forerunner of Robert Gordon's College) played a "selection of pleasing airs" prior the opening ceremony. The official name was now Union Terrace Gardens but it was more popularly known to generations of visitors as the "Trainie Park". Treasure 15: Tramways routes
185 This plan of the tramway routes in Aberdeen was produced about 1914 and shows the route colours which were displayed as coloured bands on the top-deck of the Corporation tramcars. There were nine routes which covered most of the city as it existed at this time.
Trams were first introduced to Aberdeen in the 1870s when a group of local businessmen successfully obtained Parliamentary sanction under the Aberdeen District Tramways Act 1872 to set up the Aberdeen District Tramways Company. By 1874, they had constructed their first two lines - one running from Queen's Cross, via Albyn Place and Union Street, to the North Church (now Aberdeen Arts Centre), King Street and the second from St Nicholas Street and George Street to Kittybrewster.
Their horse-drawn trams were opened to the public in September 1874 with two cars which could each carry 20 inside passengers and 4 cars for 20 inside and 20 outside passengers. A fare of 3d was charged for the full route. In their first year they carried 1.1 million passengers.
Over the years additional routes were constructed to Woodside, Mannofield, Bridge of Dee, and Bridge of Don.
By the late 1890s, consideration was being given to the introduction of electric traction in place of horse haulage. After lengthy discussions, the decision was made to sell the company to Aberdeen Corporation and the transfer was completed in August 1898. By 1902 all the tracks had been converted to electric traction and new routes to Torry and Ferryhill were opened in 1903.
Motor buses had first appeared in 1920 and a service from Castle Street to Footdee opened in January 1921.
By the 1930s the expansion of the city was creating problems for the tramway system. It was far too expensive to build new track while maintaining the existing routes. The non-profitable Torry and Ferryhill services closed in 1931. The ongoing housing developments in the 1950s forced the Town Council to take the decision in January 1955 that the tramway system would close by 1959. Over the next few years individual routes ceased until the last trams ran in May 1958. Most of the remaining cars were burnt at the Links and the metal was sold for scrap.
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." City Election. At the numerous and highly respectable Meeting of the Burgesses, Heritors, Merchants, and Inhabitants of the City of Aberdeen
508 This broadside likely dates to June or July 1832, as it refers to a city council meeting on 26th June 1832. The meeting was attended by burgesses (a guild of inhabitants of the Burgh), monied people, merchants and general inhabitants of Aberdeen. The meeting was held at the Royal Hotel and regarded the motion of Captain Carmichael. This was likely Robert Carmichael, captain of 42nd regiment, resident of Union Terrace (City of Aberdeen, and its Vicinity, 1831-1832, p. 23).
Alexander Crombie (1762-1840), a highly successful teacher, chaired the meeting. The meeting aimed to pass motions in support of James Hadden, provost of Aberdeen, in anticipation of his election bid for the Aberdeen seat in the House of Commons. This was a new seat, formed after the 1832 Scottish Reform Act.
For the prior three decades, the Hadden family had dominated local Aberdeen politics. However, in the run up to 1832, they were coming under increasing pressure from pro-reform Whigs, notably Alexander Bannerman. Bannerman made a variety of allegations against Hadden regarding his practices in local government. The Tories supported Hadden, but in the end he withdrew from the race, and Bannerman was elected to the new seat unopposed (W. Hamish Fraser and Clive H. Lee, Aberdeen 1800-2000: A New History, pp. 178-180).
The motion of the meeting suggested supporting Hadden, celebrating his work in the local council over the decades. The motion was carried. In his speech after the motion, Hadden professes support for necessary reform of the structure of burghs (constituencies), associated with the forthcoming Scottish Reform Act. The meeting thus formed a committee for arranging Haden's election campaign.
This broadside was printed by J. Davidson & Co. of Aberdeen. |