IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Thoms Place, ABERDEEN, AB24 3EW

J.G. Ross outlet on the High Street in Old Aberdeen. It is busier during term time at the University.

Aberdeen's most celebrated student pub - on High Street, Old Aberdeen.

From left to right: Bank of Scotland, The Machar Bar and Blackwell's Bookshop.

In the conservation area of Old Aberdeen, on the east side of the High Street.

No. 81, High Street, Old Aberdeen, dates from about 1780 and was the town house of the family of McLean of Coll – an island estate in the Inner Hebrides on the western seaboard.Their links with Old Aberdeen probably originated from the habit, common among Highland landowners, of sending their sons to King’s College. The house later belonged to the Rev. Samuel Trail who worked as a divinity professor from 1867 to 1887. It remained in Trail family possession until the 1970s. The walled garden attached has bricks made at Seaton Brickworks close to the east side of Old Aberdeen.

This widened area of the High Street in Old Aberdeen was planned to give room for the old weekly open-air market of the Burgh. On a plinth stands the worn remnant of the market cross. Facing the market area is The Old Town House. This was the administrative headquarters of the Burgh, where the provost and bailies held court. Above the doorway is the Burgh’s coat of arms with a Latin motto (touchingly appropriate for a small Burgh): Little Things Increase Through Harmony. The Old Town House was built in 1788 by George Jaffray to replace a previous one of 1702. Since 1891 it has housed various bodies: a church mission, a Masonic Lodge, a police unit (complete with old jail cells) and a library. The University of Aberdeen has recently conserved and refurbished this building, restoring it to daily public use. The Old Town House contains information on the University’s teaching and research and is the new visitor information centre for Old Aberdeen.

According to the university website, the name commemorates Sir Thomas Murray Taylor CBE, QC, DD, LLD, MA, LLB Professor of Law 1935-48 and Principal 1948-1962. It occupies the site of a row of houses on Wagril's Lane which remains as a footpath on the other side. The postbox on the pavement is a Victorian one.

View from the top of the C Duncan Rice library; in the left foreground the Fraser Noble (engineering and maths) building. In the background is the Macrobert (education) block and behind that, the tower blocks of Seaton. Beyond them is the North Sea...