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Great Southern Road
859 In 1880, Miss Elizabeth Crombie Duthie of Ruthrieston bought land at Allenvale and Polmuir and the vacant estate of Arthurs Seat and donated it to Aberdeen Town Council as a public park. Today, the park covers 44 acres of wide open spaces. A restaurant was also opened in 1972 at a cost of £50,000 and the famous winter gardens built in 1899 at a cost of 1550 pounds and subsequently rebuilt in 1969 at a cost of £58,000. In the centre of the picture can be seen the old West Lodge or Duthie Lodge. When the Great Southerrn Road and King George VI Bridge were built in 1938, the lodge was bought for 60 pounds by an Aberdeen contractor, dismantled and moved piece by piece to Rubislaw Den South. The Great Southern Road was a new road from Holburn Street to Whinhill Road, linking the city with the new satellite town at Kincorth and onwards to meet the Aberdeen - Stonehaven Road. Union Glen
1490 This image of Union Glen, taken from near the junction with Cuparstone Row, was likely taken by James Kellas in the early 1950s.
The building that can be seen above the bridge, on Holburn Street, was number 81 at the time. It was a shop belonging to Alexanders, a radio and television dealer. This business closed down in the 1980s. At the time of writing, the building is occupied by the Aberdeen Drilling School.
The larger building on the right is 82 Holburn Street. It has a long history as a bar and was known for generations as Aitken's. It was previously known as the Great Western Bar and later as the Malt Mill, which was originally the name of a lounge opened in 1963. The name references the building at one time having been a distillery.
See the brilliant Aberdeen Pub Companion (1975) by Archibald Hopkin for more information on this and other drinking establishments.
(Many thanks to local historian A. G. Duthie for getting in touch with information for this record.) Stop 5: Aberdeen's First Nursery for Working Women (1871-1874) and Night Shelter for the Homeless (1971-1986), East North Street
2304 In June 1871 a day nursery was established at 13 East North Street for the children of mothers who did laundry and cleaning jobs. It was run by the Aberdeen Association for the Poor, which nowadays is known as Voluntary Services Aberdeen and is Aberdeen's oldest charity. It was for children aged from 6 weeks to 5 years. Prices were one child 3d, nowadays 1p, two children 41/2d, for children from the same family and three for 6d. Prices were increased in 1873 as the nursery was not able to cover its running costs. This did not help and unfortunately the doors closed in May 1874 as it was not feasible for the Association to continue to run it at a loss of £60 a year. A Flower Mission was run instead where volunteers made and brought bouquets of flowers to sick women from the East End and it lasted for twenty years. In 1895-1902 nursery was re-established in the nearby 15-21 Princes Street. This is the site of the first night shelter founded by Mrs Hilda Wernham (1919-2002) in answer to what she saw as the very desperate need of the indigent population in Aberdeen. A justice of the Peace and founding member of the Cyrenians Mrs Wernham was a sparky lady with a social conscience and an ability to inspire others. She managed to persuade business people with her persistence and sense of humour to support the venture. Her enthusiasm and commitment have earned her a place in the history of Aberdeen. Her name lives on at Wernham House (pictured), the first hostel of its kind, established in 1986 at 7 Virginia Street by Aberdeen Cyrenians.
Memories:
Ina recalls Hilda Wernham
Alma's memories of Hilda Wernham and Aberdeen Cyrenians Rosie's Cafe
2667 Rosie's Cafe on the corner of Esslemont Avenue and Rosemout Place, photographed on 24th January 2018. The address is 137 Rosemount Place.
The cafe and takeaway is part of a social enterprise that provides vocational training, support and work experience for people recovering from acquired brain injuries, mental health and a range of other conditions. They also operate a framers and craft shop at 45-49 Holburn Street.
Rosie's Social Enterprise developed out of a craft workshop organised by Turning Point Scotland. The cafe in Rosemount opened in 1999.
The enterprise has won a number of awards over the years and has successfully bid for lottery funding. In 2012 they launched a wedding stationary business. 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] The Foundry
4409 A photograph of The Foundry pub and restaurant at 41-43 Holburn Street taken on 21st March 2024.
43 Holburn Street, today The Foundry, was built in around 1915/16 as a motor showroom and workshop for Mr. John Harper, engineer of Bournemouth, to a design by architect George B. Mitchell (Aberdeen Daily Journal, 20th September 1915, p. 4).
In November 1916, during the First World War, the Harper Motor Company put their new garage, at the junction of Holburn Street and Justice Mill Lane, at the disposal of the Red Cross. The commodious building, ideal for transport work, became the headquarters of the Aberdeen Transport Section of the Red Cross Society (Evening Express, 21st November 1916, p. 5).
43 Holburn Street was occupied and in use by the Harper Motor Company until at least 1979. In 1986, George Dowdles, who had ran a roller skating rink called Rollerland Disco in Bon-Accord Terrace, proposed to turn the premises into a leisure centre for teenagers (Press & Journal, 19th June 1986, p. 3).
The new venture at 43 Holburn Street was to be a soda and burger café modelled on the TV show Happy Days and called Up The Junction. It opened in October 1986 (P&J, 10th October 1986, p. 3).
Up The Junction appears to have struggled financially and 43 Holburn Street was remodelled and opened as Rollerland Mark II in August 1987 (EE, 22nd February 1988, p. 8). The original Rollerland skating rink had been on the second floor of 5 Bon-Accord Terrace and operated from 26th June 1981 to mid-1986.
Rollerland on Holburn Street was briefly owned by Cove Rangers football club and was temporarily renamed Wheels Leisure Centre. George Dowdles remained its manager (P&J, 1st April 1989, p. 1). The venue was reopened as Rollerland under the ownership of Aberdeen District Council in July 1989. DJs Robin Galloway and Gary Stein provided music for a reopening gala night (EE, 27th July 1989, p. 5).
Rollerland finally closed in February 1991 on safety grounds. Water leaks had warped the floor making it unsafe for skating. The venue had struggled financially and the estimated cost of repair was too large (P&J, 18th September 1991, p. 3). In June 1995, there was a significant fire in the building (EE, 19 June 1995, p. 2).
In September 1995, the company Alloa Pubs and Restaurants, who had leased the building from the District Council, unveiled plans for a £500,000 transformation of the run-down property. It was to be turned into a prestige bar-diner called The Granary, with a lay-out based on the company's Glasgow venue of the same name (EE, 16th September 1995, p. 7).
With a final redevelopment cost of £600,000, The Granary opened to the public on 6th February 1996 (P&J, 7th February 1996, p. 11).
A search of Aberdeen City valuation rolls indicates that by April 2005 The Granary had changed its name to The Foundry. At the time, The Foundry was operated by Mitchell & Butlers, one of the largest restaurant and pub businesses in the UK.
Mitchell & Butlers own the O'Neill's chain of Irish pubs, the first branch of which opened at 9-10 Back Wynd, Aberdeen on 22nd September 1994. This was formerly the premises of the Tappit Hen pub (P&J, 16th September 1994, p. 3).
In 2010, Mitchell & Butlers disposed of 333 of their town and community pubs to the Stonegate Pub Company. This likely included The Foundry ('Our history' page on Mitchell & Butlers website: https://www.mbplc.com/about-us/our-history/: accessed 22/03/2024).
In November 2023, The Foundry reopened to the public following a brief closure for a significant redevelopment. Backed by a £277,000 investment from the Stonegate Group, the UK's largest pub company, the work aimed to shift the venue from a sports-focused pub to a more family-friendly food destination. The exterior design changed from a black and gold colour scheme to the red and gold of Aberdeen Football Club (Aberdeen Business News, 23rd November 2023, https://aberdeenbusinessnews.co.uk/the-foundry-unveils-stylish-transformation-after-major-investment/: accessed 22/03/2024).
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