IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Virginia Street, ABERDEEN, AB11 5AZ

Looking across Regent Quay and over the granite buildings of the city centre.

Famous old street descending from Castlegate to Aberdeen Harbour. This is the city's first flyover, being built on embankments and arches across Virginia Street. These Georgian houses are built of Loanhead granite - quarried in the Rosemount area. The blue ship in the distance is one of the "North Boats" which service Orkney and Shetland.

The B-listed houses (see: http://data.historic-scotland.gov.uk/pls/htmldb/f?p=2200:15:0::::BUILDING:20428 ) on the sharply-sloping street connecting the Castlegate and the harbour date from the mid-18th Century.

For more about George Thomson, see this page (http://mcjazz.f2s.com/WhiteStarLine.htm ) on the fantastic Doric Columns website. For the Thomson family memorial (where the name is spelled Thompson) in Dyce burial ground, see: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/986485 .

Old road bridge carrying Marischal Street over Virginia Street in Aberdeen - taken shortly before the bridge was demolished and rebuilt across a dualled Virginia Street. Note the Shore Porters' Society removals lorry - their base was here in Virginia Street before being moved to nearby Baltic Place. Established in 1498, the porters [originally pynours] carried goods between the town and harbour. www.aberdeencity.gov.uk

Marischal Street, connecting the Castlegate and the harbour, was one of the first "modern" (18th Century) streets in Aberdeen and there are too many listed buildings to list...

Carrying Marischal Street over Virginia Road (A93) in the vicinity of Aberdeen Harbour. For the bridge it replaced in the 1980's see Image

A dual carriageway road in the city centre, with Marischal Street crossing it on a bridge.

A real ale bar, all too rare in Aberdeen.

Grand granite building at the east end of Aberdeen's Union Street. It was designed by Archibald Simpson (1819) and is built in white ashlar granite, in classical style with ionic columns. Union Buildings used to house the Athenaeum (reading library) before becoming Jimmy Hay's Restaurant. Fire in 1973 burnt out the building which was since restored and now is occupied by the Athenaeum pub. The statue on the right is "The Mannie in the Green" - it was sited in The Green in earlier days. "Before it burnt down it was The Royal Athenaeum restaurant, catering for a select private clientele in the 1960s - civic functions and especially for the "Royals". The "top floor" today was not the top floor, it now does not have the attics which were used for changing rooms, kitchen staff tearooms, dry good store etc. as well as the access to rooftop. In picture, top left was main kitchen, centre window was pantry and the right window was Pastry". [Thanks - John Donaldson].