Showing 1-19 of 19 results
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Aberdeen Art Gallery
Behind the grand facade of Aberdeen Art Gallery is a cool, marble-lined space exhibiting the work of contemporary Scottish and English painters, such as Gwen Hardie, Stephen Conroy, Trevor Sutton and Tim Ollivier. There are also several landscapes by Joan Eardley, who lived in a cottage on the cliffs near Stonehaven in the 1950s and'60s, and painted tempestuous oils of the North Sea and poignant portraits of slum children.
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Aberdeen Beach
Aberdeen Beach is 800m east of the city centre. A spectacular 2-mile sweep of clean, golden sand stretching between the mouths of the Rivers Dee and Don. At one time Aberdeen Beach was a good, old-fashioned British seaside resort, but the availability of cheap package holidays has lured Scottish holidaymakers away from its somewhat chilly delights. On a warm summer's day, though, it's still an excellent beach.
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Aberdeen Harbour
Aberdeen has a busy, working harbour crowded with survey vessels and supply ships servicing the offshore oil installations, and car ferries bound for Orkney and Shetland.
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Bird-Watching Hide
There is a bird-watching hide on the south bank of the River Don, between the beach and King St, which leads back south towards Old Aberdeen.
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Codona's Amusement Park
The Esplanade sports several traditional seaside attractions, including Codona's Amusement Park, complete with stomach-churning waltzers, dodgems, a roller coaster, log flume and haunted house.
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Gordon Highlanders Museum
This excellent museum records the history of one of the British Army's most famous fighting units, described by Winston Churchill as 'the finest regiment in the world'. Originally raised in the northeast of Scotland by the fourth Duke of Gordon in 1794, the regiment was amalgamated with the Seaforths and Camerons to form the Highlanders regiment in 1994.
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King's College Chapel
It was in Old Aberdeen that Bishop Elphinstone established King's College, Aberdeen's first university, in 1495. The 16th-century King's College Chapel is easily recognised by its crown spire; the interior is largely unchanged since it was first built, with impressive stained-glass windows and choir stalls.
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King's College Visitor Centre
Near to King's College Chapel, King's College Visitor Centre houses a multimedia display on the university's history and a pleasant coffee shop.
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Marischal College
Across Broad St from Provost Skene's House is Marischal College, founded in 1593 by the 5th Earl Marischal, and merged with King's College (founded 1495) in 1860 to create the modern University of Aberdeen. The huge and impressive facade in Perpendicular Gothic style - unusual in having such elaborate masonry hewn from notoriously hard-to-work granite - dates from 1906 and is the world's second-largest granite structure (after L'Escorial near Madrid). It houses the university's science faculty.
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Marischal Museum
Founded in 1786, the Marischal Museum houses a fascinating collection of material donated by graduates and friends of the university over the centuries. In one room, the history of northeastern Scotland is depicted through its myths, customs, famous people, architecture and trade. The other gallery gives an anthropological overview of the world, incorporating objects from vastly different cultures, arranged thematically (Polynesian wooden masks alongside gas masks and so on).
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Maritime Museum
Overlooking the nautical bustle is the Maritime Museum, centred on a three-storey replica of a North Sea oil production platform, with exhibits explaining all you ever wanted to know about the petroleum industry.
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Mercat Cross
The 17th-century Mercat Cross bears a sculpted frieze of portraits of Stuart monarchs.
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Provost Skene's House
This turreted town house was occupied in the 17th century by the provost Sir George Skene and briefly by the Duke of Cumberland in 1746. The tempera-painted ceiling with its religious symbolism dates from 1622, having survived the depredations of the Reformation. Look for the earnest-looking angels, the soldiers and St Peter with crowing cockerels.
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Salvation Army Citadel
The Baronial heap towering over the eastern end of Castle St is the Salvation Army Citadel , which was modelled on Balmoral Castle.
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Satrosphere
Halfway between the beach and the city centre is Satrosphere, a hands-on, interactive science centre.
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St Machar's Cathedral
The 15th-century St Machar's Cathedral is a rare example of a fortified cathedral with Celtic origins. It's best known for its heraldic ceiling, dating from 1520, which has 48 shields of kings, nobles, archbishops and bishops. Legend has it that St Machar was divinely inspired to establish a church where the river takes the shape of a bishop's crook.
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St Nicholas Church
On the northern side of Union St, 300m west of Castlegate, is St Nicholas Church, the so-called 'Mither Kirk' (Mother Church) of Aberdeen. The granite spire dates from the 19th century, but there has been a church on this site since the 12th century; the early 15th-century St Mary's Chapel survives in the eastern part of the church.
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Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is the indoor alternative to Codona's Amusement Park, with tenpin bowling, Dodgems, arcade games and pool tables.
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Union Street
Union Street, the main shopping street, runs along the crest of this ridge between Holburn Junction in the west and Castlegate in the east. It's the city's main thoroughfare, lined with solid, Victorian granite buildings. The oldest area is Castlegate, at the eastern end, where the castle once stood. When it was captured from the English for Robert the Bruce, the password used by the townspeople was 'Bon Accord', which is now the city's motto.
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Showing 1-19 of 19 results
