Monday 30 December 2013

Pen and Ink Panorama

This is possibly my favourite view in Aberdeen. The Denburn valley, looking towards the rear of Belmont Street over Union Terrace Gardens.

Such a wonderful variety of buildings, reminds me of Edinburgh's Old Town. The Denburn valley used to be a river (the Den Burn or stream). C18th development created high level streets on bridges, so the top parts of the buildings are posh shops and the lower parts storage and warehousing. The burn was taken underground and replaced by the railway in the C19th and that was replaced by a road in the 1960s. Later, one side of the bridge on the right was built over with a shopping centre, destroying the view and reducing all underneath to stygian gloom. Aberdeen town planners, you did it again. I am hoping that the latest brainwave, to fill in the Victorian park and valley with a state of the art modern centre won't go ahead, as it would cut at two or three bottom floors off what you can see here, as well as destroying a lovely and much needed green space in the city centre. Anyway, we all know about that one.

I was struggling to get the buildings in the right order, with only fragmentary views to work from, so I had to do a bit of cut and paste here also. I don't think it detracts from it too much.

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