20/11/2025
Hi All,
This is a belated follow up to my post from the summer. Sorry for the delay in getting the next tour organised and out in the diary but the good news is I'm going to run a walking tour on Saturday, 29th November at 10.30 am. The bad news is it is very short notice I know and so it'll be a free tour and a bit of a dry run for me to perfect it going forward, regardless of numbers. If there is the demand for the tour, I can run it again more formally in the Spring. It's a new tour - well, actually, it contains elements of the original tour but much of it is new, with new information, some additional/alternative locations to visit and the ultimate destination is also new. I have tentatively given it the name Craigiebuckler in the 1880s, but that is a slight misnomer, as we will learn of the whole history of the area (not just the 1880s), but I want to use sites that were already prominent in the 1880s as “props“ for these stories.
So, for anyone who is free and interested in coming along, the details are as follows:
Date/time: Saturday, 29th November at 10.30 a.m.
Meet: at the entrance to Couper's Pond on Macaulay Drive, Aberdeen.
Tour ends: outside the Gordon Highlander Museum on Viewfield Road, Aberdeen.
Duration will be 2 hours approx. (allow for 2 hours 15 minutes).
Anyone wishing to attend please text me on 07711 922092 or email me at [email protected] with your name and contact mobile number - just so I can have an idea of numbers and also contact everyone if e.g. weather means we have to cancel. I will acknowledge all texts and emails promptly and so if you haven't heard back within 24 hours, please check you got the text number/email address correct!
Please come prepared for the weather (check forecast) and wear stout footwear. There will be a modest to moderate degree of fitness required (all walking) and so please assess your own suitability.
Please feel free to share this post with anyone whom you think may be interested.
I have set out summary details of the content below.
Summary
We start at Craigiebuckler House (part of the James Hutton Institute) and learn of the history of the lands of Craigiebuckler, Burnieboozle, Springfield and Walker Hill. You will hear about the connection with Robert the Bruce and Mary, Queen of Scots. Learn about the families who owned these lands, including two Lord provosts, a connection with the Chinese or “O***m” Wars, a local magnet from a now forgotten Aberdeen industry, and a long-forgotten financial scandal involving an absconding Aberdonian Nick Leeson (you can decide if he was simply an unlucky victim of circumstance).
Visit the sites of Burnieboozle House and Springfield House.
From there, we fit in a visit to Johnston Gardens to learn of its history and of the also now largely forgotten man who created the wonderful gardens there.
Then to an architectural gem designed by A. Marshall Mackenzie, Craigiebuckler Parish Church (now Springfield Church), built in 1883, largely funded by John Cardno Couper, the Laird of Craigiebuckler, where you can learn of the controversial circumstances behind it being built.
From there to Walker Dam - originally a mill pond but expanded for industrial use in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Learn of its history and its connection to the Rubislaw Bleach Works (which stood where the Aberdeen Grammar playing fields now are).
From there we go to St Luke’s (now home to the Gordon Highlander Museum), to learn of its connection to the arts in Aberdeen, along with its neighbour, Kepplestone House (the site of which lies opposite St Luke’s). Learn about Alexander Macdonald (who lived in Kepplestone House) and his bequest which created Aberdeen Art Gallery in the 1880s, and of Sir George Reid (RSA President and arguably the foremost Scottish portrait artist of the nineteenth century) and his brother Archie, and their connection to St Luke’s. Learn also about Robert Brough, who spent his childhood years in the area, an artist of huge promise who died tragically in a train crash aged only 32 in 1905. (Note: entrance to the Gordon Highlander Museum not included!)
Here the tour ends, hopefully with those attending now having an appreciation of the significant influence upon Aberdeen in the past of the semi-rural area which lies just west of what is now Anderson Drive, north of what is now Countesswells Road and south of what is now Queens Road.
Hopefully see some of you a week on Saturday.
Robin Clarkson
