Cubic Blocks, Provost Watt Drive

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 26 Nov 2022

There are three of these stand-alone blocks - which have a certain functional charm about them - towards the top of the wide and windy road that runs through the Kincorth housing estate. Each block houses nine flats; presumably this means there is one on the ground floor and two on all the upper ones. Aberdeen Council held a public competition for the design of the current estate as long ago as 1937. Slightly bizarrely, the winners were from Pall Mall, London, and received £500 for their efforts. The war held things up a bit, but once it was over building began, and over time the design was increasingly ignored: it was originally all meant to be houses. Amateurs like myself would probably assume that this suburb of Aberdeen, just South of the River Dee, took its name from a farm shown on old OS maps which was located at the SouthEast of today's estate, on the West Tullos Road (B985). Thankfully, however, there is a very well-written short pdf guide to the area freely available online by a George McKnight. It turns out the name has been around for centuries and that its area was once far more extensive. Several maps exist from the 18th Century and earlier, perhaps because of the various land disputes mentioned in the guide. Covenanter forces gathered here in 1639 in the early days of the arguments about the monarchy and religion - before it all got a bit messy and confusing - prior to heading into battle with the Aberdeen forces, who were still loyal to Charles I at the time. The Kincorth campers won.

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