Oakbank School

Oakbank was, to people of a certain age in Aberdeen, the great threat. Used by our parents to guarantee our good behaviour, the threat of 'Approved School' (let's call a spade a spade: 'borstal') was weilded, Damoclean above our heads, as the place we'd end up if we didn't "learn to behave".

Oakbank main building.

I can just, if I strain, remember visiting Oakbank on an fundraiser open day in the 1970's (most probably the centenary celebration). A family outing to a borstal. Nice. All I can really remember was the celebrity guest of honour performing his tombola obligations. That guest of honour was local superstar continuity announcer Jimmy 'Spunky' Spankie, steadfast and redoubtable stalwart of Grampian Television's 'just like your living room' in-vision continuity suite. A man who's fame was compounded by his trademark plaid trousers, which he always wore. Those were the days.

Jimmy - wearing slippers and looking a bit 'tired'.

Oakbank was founded in 1878 and sited high in the Stocket Forest off Midstocket Road. When it was new it was then what was known as an 'Industrial School'; the class of institution which became know as 'Reformatories', then 'Approved Schools', then 'List D Schools'.  All just euphamisms for children's prison - though these institutions did have an open regime, which set them aside from the pure 'borstal', which is a tougher and more enclosed kind of youth prison.

Midstocket Road at entrance to Oakbank.

Latterly, Oakbank was classed as a 'List G School'; an establishment which catered for the needs of young people with emotional and behavioural disorders and specific mental health issues. We're gratified that over the decades the emphasis and aim of this institution changed from that of disciplined reform of the character to recognising that many of the troubled inmates were in need of intensive support - not punishment. Fees ranged from £93,600 to £179,400 per pupil per year.

The Governor's Lodge - a listed building.

However, nothing good will last forever, and we wonder about the fate of the institution's final pupils who were receiving that support In 2008 when it closed it's doors, the charitable trust which ran it collapsing amidst reports of mismanagement leading to "serious concerns about many aspects relating to the school". 100 jobs were lost. We hope that the skills which were embodied in that staff have not been dissipated and are still being used to help young people who need the support of our society, in order that - in turn and in time, they might become productive, active and supportive members of that society themselves.

Since the closure of the school, there has been all the usual now-you-see-it-now-you-don't bad things made to look good and good things made to look bad real estate dealing bullschist going on about getting the school rennovated to maintain its function (no chance!) or redeveloping it as 'aspirational, exclusive' housing (ker-ching!) or as a business park (the 'park' bit meaning 'carpark', of course). The local press report concerns of anti-social behaviour and vandalism at the abandoned site. There are also reports that dangerous chemicals and personal files are stored on the site. There has, it is said, been fire-raising. Local residents, it is reported, live in fear.

Document box-files plainly visible in office.

All very nasty, we're sure, and local councillor Bill Comrie has lead calls to have the school demolished, saying that the "huge amount of fear" suffered by his residents justifies the indescriminate destruction of the buildings by new site owner "Carlton Rock Ltd" (they don't appear to have a website). Thus conveniently clearing the site and clearing the way for planning consent in the spring (housing, we reckon being favourite). Yes. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

But at present, the site is lying vacant and derelict.

Pull up a seat...

And admire the views...

The Crypto-Communist Roof of John Lewis

Coincidentally continuing the theme of multi-storey car-park top-decks, today I found myself on the top of the building which is occupied by the John Lewis department store. The top of the building forms an adjunct to the Loch Street car-park of the Bon-Accord centre. The building was formerly called "Norco House" and was occupied by the department store of the Northern Co-operative Society.

The Communist Party and the Second and Third Socialist Internationals paid great attention to the Co-operative societies, seeing them both as a form of communism-in-action but also potentially as a counter-revolutionary lightning-rod sop to the working class; earthing the charge of revolutionary tension through their rosy ideologies; thus preserving the status quo.

As far as the Northern Co-operative Society goes (and, skating all too quickly over the surface of this frozen yet deep pond) its own history of soaring idealism betrayed by mis-management, pilfering, inefficiency, spanish practices, featherbedding, jobsworthy empire-bulding and eventual over-reach and collapse in 1993 (followed by subsequent carpet-bagging and asset-stripping) parallels the history of Soviet Communism itself. In a very approximate way. Sort of.

John Lewis is an employee-owned partnership business, which is managed through a system which resembles that of worker's councils, so it's entirely apt that they should occupy this building in Aberdeen.

The roof of the building is accessed by car via this thrilling sky-bridge from the main section of the Loch St carpark. The sky-bridge straddles Loch Street below. Pedestrians can reach the roof via the stairs inside the John Lewis store itself.

You can drive your car on top of that. Really, you can.

As usual, this open-to-the sky portion of the car-park was largely deserted.

Nobody here but us psychogeographers.

And the views are, of course, spectacular.

George St

Rubislaw

Gallowgate

Alienated at Union Square

Earlier, we wrote a post exploring the hyperreality and mediated experiences which are forced upon the hapless consumer inside Union Square.

An altogether different and much more real experience is available to the visitor on top of Union Square.

I've been expecting you, Mr Bond...

An intriguing "propertunity". (It's not really in Aberdeen, but it'll make a nice bolt hole for any Mad Tycoon Megalomaniacs who might live there!)

Aberdeen Property Solicitors Centre Link (so it won't stay live forever...)
The Guard House, Bervie Brow


From the schedule...

...the uniqueness of the property is that adjoining the house is a subterranean structure which is believed to have been constructed as a military facility in the 1950’s as a military command centre and operated until approximately 1985.

The access is adjacent to the lodge and then descends almost 18 metres by a narrow sloping corridor. It then transcends into a labyrinth of rooms with one area reflecting a Second World War plotting centre or something out of the James Bond movie Dr No.

It is intriguing to consider what private use in this day and age such a vast underground facility could be utilised for. A guestimate of its extent is at least 9,000 sq.ft on a multitude of levels. Some suggestions have been a mushroom farm or a large wine store and if the site had been in a more accessible location it would have made a superb night club. However this is when a purchaser will have the opportunity to exercise their flair and imagination!

Kingswells, source of the Bucksburn

In the middle of modern Kingswells, in amongst the suburban cul-de-sacs, the source of the Bucksburn can be found.

Somewhere in Aberdeen

The source of a major Aberdeen water course, just south of Hazlehead at an abandoned retail complex - now an ad-hoc nature reserve. Beautiful in the sun.

The Alpha Stone

The Alpha Stone is a March Stone, or Boundary Stone which marks the extent of both the inner and outer marches. The Alpha Stone is located at the outfall of the Ferryhill Burn, not far from the Queen Elizabeth Bridge.
It is marked A ABD CR