Beach Boulevard Tenement, March Stones, Public Art

On our way to visit "By Order of Me", we walked from Castle Hill to Links Road down Cotton Street, parallel to the Beach Boulevard in an area where industry is giving way to retail and residence. On the corner of Cotton Street and Links Road, we spotted something we'd missed last week when we went to look at the big weapon of embarrassed prestige.

The wall has been built over the top of a granite boundary stone, only the 'BD' of its 'ABD' mark is visible. Well, we assume it has an 'ABD' mark. Probability suggests that it is, but there's no definite way of knowing.

Along with the stone we spotted about 15 metres east of this stone, this is one of what we at Other Aberdeen have started calling "unknown stones", that's to say, boundary stones (or "march" stones) which do not appear on Aberdeen City Council's Sites and Monuments Record web pages. The RCHAMS record says "nothing is now visible of these stones".

Across the road, the post-modern tenements which are bounded by the railway, the Beach Boulevard, Links Road and Constitution Street have some nice detail touches on the Boulevard side: porthole stairwell windows, asymmetrical profile and frontage, colourful penthouse storey. Unfortunately, the Links Road frontage is a little less uplifting.

Beach Boulevard

Links Road

But it's inside, in the semi-public, semi-private space of the courtyard/carpark that we find some real gems of placemaking, worthy of this spot's maritime associations, what with it being quite close to the beach and all...

Our town is dotted with new-build tenement developments of this kind, invariably with a car-park and circulation area in the centre (rather than gardens). No doubt there are many similar instances of semi-public art. We'll try to seek them out.