Secret City: Aberdeen - Andrew Brooks / Adelle Stripe / Curated Place / Spectra

PROJ E CT

ADELLE STRIPE

Townhouse Tower

This is a city of secrets. Of bones and skulls. Witchcraft and curse. A city ruled by the sea. A trading place, a passing point, a route to the Shetlands and beyond.

Where oil and granite meet. And white sands stretch from Scalp Bank to Buchan Deep. A city built on stilts, of wynds and tunnels and bleak cobbled streets. Cigarette butts, drinkers at dawn, howling dogs on the gallows’ hill. Commerce bleeds from every block, with diamonds and whiskey, and coal fire coughs. And all roads lead to the harbour. The smell of fish, just a memory now. And markers of old trade – unions and guilds – map buildings with crests and leopards carved in stone. What once was, what could be. Science, anatomy, two universities.

Seething crowds on Union Street speak Doric by the bus stop, discuss the possibilities. This is a place of pioneers, of workers, mariners, grafters and resistance. Easterlies blow from Fittie, its salty frost rests on the lips, the bitter cold a part of this land. Gold shimmers through granite and steeples silhouette on the day’s fading light. Dusk closes in at Pittodrie, as the last rays drop behind Town House’s sight.

Along York Street, on the main road into Footdee, industrial estates and corrugated roofs line the maintenance docks where bright-beached trawlers queue up to be repaired. A chainyard of rusting anchors and rigparts overlook the waters.

The Hall Russell engine shop is the only original building from Aberdeen’s industrial heyday, when 1500 workers were employed in this area alone. It was in these grounds that Greenpeace’s RainbowWarrior was constructed, a boat destroyed by the French intelligence service after leading a series of protests against nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Beyond the chainyard Auld Fittie begins, a village of delicate cottages and tarry sheds (for storing fishing tackle) built around patches of green, designed for the drying of nets. This area was mainly occupied by fisherfolk in the 1890s, and is now the home of artists, craftspeople and relatives of some of the families who first lived here.

It was at Pocra Quay, near the end of York Street, that escapologist Harry Houdini performed in front of an audience of thousands in 1909. He visited the city to tend to the grave of his hero John Anderson, the Wizard of the North, who is buried at St. Nicholas Kirk.

Houdini performed an underwater escape trip in the navigation channel. Locked in chains and handcuffed, he jumped into the polluted and sewage-ridden harbour waters from a tug boat. He emerged unscathed ninety seconds later from the depths much to the delight and shock of onlookers.

Now, the only chains in Footdee are the rusting anchors from vast vessels of the deep.

Chainyard

The North Pier lighthouse, located at the end of the harbour’s promontory is one of three that guides waterborn vessels into the city’s docks. Built in 1866, this octagonal iron tower has a fog bell on the south side. It is built on flagstaff and bricks, the first port of call before entering the channel known as The Bar.

Lighthouse

The lighthouse’s lamp reflects south towards Breakwater, and onwards to Skate’s Nose and Abercromby Jetty. It beams white and red, four seconds off, two seconds on. In sea fog the lamp changes to yellow.

Here, a vicious bite runs through the wind. Fishermen once lined the pier’s bulwark, casting baited lines into the storm-chewed waters. Now, this spit is out-of-bounds.

The old Customs Watch House overlooks marine traffic that travels each day and night. To its right is the neon glow of Cadonas Fun Beach, where an illuminated big wheel, carousels and pirate ships look out across the beach. The esplanade runs along the waterfront from Footdee, where couples stroll on Sunday afternoons, and red-cheeked children eat candy floss as the easterlies blow against their faces.

The vast golden beach stretches along the coastline to the River Don, Blackdog, Meikle Tarty and beyond.

Behind the lighthouse, facing seaward, the North Sea rages in winter and vast cargo ships, ferries and trawlers queue on the horizon awaiting solid ground. Some sail from Long Forties, others from the Devil’s Hole. Ling Bank and Fisher mark the aquatic border, before reaching Stavanger, and the Norwegian lands.

Intermoor

Aberdeen Harbour is known as ‘Scotland’s North Sea Gateway’. It has 39 shipping connections and cargo arrives each day from countries far and wide including Canada, Mexico, Senegal and the Falkland Islands.

On Miller Street, buoyancy aids, mottled with oil or kelp, are used for positioning offshore equipment and create peculiar sculptural shapes of anchors, sinkers and chainstoppers silhouetted against the sinking sun. They are stored with decommissioned parts and equipment which are often recycled.

Miller Street is now empty at night. The quiet streets are vacant aside from passing taxis and the shadows of industrial buildings which line the routes towards the docks.

Leviathan vessels creep across the skyline day and night, some 500 feet in length. Passenger and freight ferries, cargo, tankers, yachts and cruises arrive into the city’s heart where over 100,000 crew use the docks each year.

This is the main connection to Orkney and the Shetland Isles, where sheep, salmon and people are transported to and from the dock. And the final resting place for oil industry detritus, where skeletal frames of once submerged metal and plastic are given a new life onshore.

Rubislaw Quarry

The site was blasted and chiselled by a team of local masons who worked in this cold, dark cavern where sunlight rarely reached the bottom, and the only way out was via the Blondine cable car, which loomed ominously above them.

When it was first quarried, Rubislaw was one of the largest man-made holes in Europe. It opened in 1740 and was sold by the council for £13 due to its unsuitability as a building material. It went on to become one the main providers of granite for Aberdeen. Over six million tonnes were quarried from the site, and rock from this vast hole built Waterloo Bridge, Forth Bridge, Bell Rock Lighthouse and New York Opera House.

Rubislaw contains Monzogranite - an igneous rock and thrawn type - which is weather resistant. It is filled with mica crystals which provide the shimmer and twinkle on Aberdeen’s buildings in the winter sun. Under a microscope the granite shows a tartan pattern of red and blue against a charcoal grey cheque.

A metal fence and barb wire circle the perimeter. It was once known as a suicide spot or lovers’ leap and was the first place police checked for missing persons. Children often played here and peered into the ravines from precarious ledges, now fully immersed in water.

The site closed in 1971, and gradually filled with rainwater. A crane, abandoned tools and machinery rust on the lagoon’s floor with piles of scree that are slowly turning to sediment. Old caravans, tipped rubble and stolen cars reside at the bottom of the lake, which is 500ft deep. There have been various attempts to turn it into a rubbish dump, nuclear bomb shelter, jail, stadium, and giant deep freeze. It is now a place of greenery and contemplation, where nature has reclaimed its industrial past.

Seven Incorporated Trades This imposing concrete building at the far end of Union Street contains a series of neoclassical stainedglass windows that face out towards the crossroads of Holbourn Street and Great Western Road. Comprising the seven trades of weavers, bakers, tailors, hammermen, shoemakers, wrights & coopers, and fleshers the glass reveals the significance of Trinity Hall on the city of Aberdeen.

The fleshers’ window displays a biblical figure standing over a slaughtered lamb on a butchers’ block, a menorah with almond cups lights the scene. He wears robes and holds a knife, the same one that appears on the crest opposite. An embroidered fleshers’ mort-cloth is exhibited inside the building and was once used on the coffins of butchers and slaughtermen who were members of the fleshers’ guild.

First occupied in 1967, and designed by Mackie Ramsay & Taylor Architects, this modernist building was revolutionary when it was built. It re-uses windows of the previous Trinity Hall and its interior contains artefacts dating back to the 1600s. This striking interior bridges old and new, and contains furniture, paintings, and archival materials which map the history of the Seven Members of Incorporated Trade. It is now used for events, meetings and formal dances where guests socialise in front of Adam & Smith’s hand-crafted glass dating back to the 1890s.

Bringing together photographer Andrew Brooks and writer Adelle Stripe with the UNESCO recognized Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives, Secret Cities Aberdeen sets out to research, explore, discuss and document the lost, hidden and forgotten spaces of the City.

Undertaking a series of residencies and explorations through the city during 2016 and early 2017 Brooks and Stripe have created 14 new works across Aberdeen commissioned for SPECTRA. The project provides a platform and focus for explorations of both the built and imagined spaces of the urban environment, enabling everyone involved to experience and interrogate cities using photography, memory and identity. Running workshops and training events simultaneously as an integral part of the research the project aims to activate a sense of ownership in the city resulting in a celebration of place, embracing both official and unofficial histories to renew a sense of ownership for citizens so often lost in the increasingly privatised public realm of contemporary life.

The artists aim to create new notions of places within what may seem familiar environments to those native to a place. Working with participants from the host city they also aim to reposition the perception where they work within the wider national and international cultural consciousness. Multi-layered yet accessible from many angles Secret Cities brings together arts, heritage, museology, social science, anthropology, urbanism, architecture and education by inviting communities and creators to take a fresh view of their physical and psychological environments. It breaks down social, economic and physical barriers to activate forgotten, neglected or ignored spaces. In doing so it allows both old and new meaning, memory and identities to take shape – both within local communities and in the minds of those further afield.

Secret Cities is a new commission supported by ‘Stories Stones and Bones’ Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland as a part of the Scottish Year of History Heritage and Archaeology and Granite Noir, Aberdeen’s first book festival dedicated to crime fiction.

ADELLE STRIPE PROJ E CT

ABOUT THE ARTISTS Andrew Brooks is a Manchester based photographer with a focus on exploring and documenting hidden and forgotten spaces in the urban environment. Winner of the 2016 Greater Manchester Prize for Contemporary Arts His work has been exhibited internationally including the Art and Algorithms Digital Arts Festival Florida, Pingyao International Photography Festival (China) and Farmani Gallery in Brooklyn. 2017 marks the return to Spectra for Andrew, having previously appeared in the 2015 programme with the stunning ‘Immersion Iceland’ 320º film installation.

A behind the scenes exhibition of additional shots will feature at Seventeen during the festival alongside participant contributions from the workshops. www.andrewbrooksphotography.com // @andrewpbrooks Adelle Stripe has published three collections of poetry and her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Times, The Stool Pigeon and Morning Star.

In 2012 Dark Corners of the Land was named Poetry Book of the Year at the 3:AM Awards and was also a Scotsman Book of the Year. She teaches Creative Writing at MMU’s Manchester Writing School, was included in the Read Women 2014 list, and is the recipient of the 2016 K Blundell Award for Fiction Her debut novel, “Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile”, is forthcoming on Wrecking Ball Press. www.adellestripe.com // @adellestripe

Year of History Heritage and Archaeology The 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology runs from 1 January to 31 December. It is a celebration of Scotland’s people, traditions, culture, landscapes, attractions and icons, as well as those hidden gems usually out of sight. From ancient and mysterious standing stones to World Heritage Sites it will explore sweeping glens and mountains, storytelling, heritage heroes and world-renowned historic collections. From the Scottish Borders to Shetland, and from Fife to the Isle of Skye, Scotland’s fascinating past will be brought to life through a range of exciting events, attractions and activities during 2017. #HHA2017 // #HLFStories The Secret City Aberdeen team wish to thank:

Phil Astley at Aberdeen City Council, Lesley Anne Rose at Aberdeen Performing Arts, Rev. Stephen Taylor at St. Nicholas Kirk, Dr. Arthur Winfield at Open Space Trust, Sheila in Footdee (Jo’s Mum), Maria Robertson at Society of Advocates, Prof. Graeme Nicol at Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen, John Muirhead at Freemasons’ Hall, Paul Tritton at Drummonds, Angela Greenhalgh at Skene House, Bruce Mann at Aberdeenshire Council, Glen at Herbert Love, Fraser MacDonald at Suttie Arts Space, Colin Torr, Emma Paterson at Aberdeen Performing Arts, Alan Findley at David Welch Winter Gardens, Hugh Black and Sandy Whyte at Rubislaw Quarry, Chris Croly, Mark Bremner, Alana Morrison and David Officer at Aberdeen City Council, Chris Bain at Aberdeen Harbour Board, Robert Philp, University of Aberdeen, Martyn Horne at Intermoor, the staff at Seventeen, Raymond Simpson at The Beach Ballroom, Fiona Duffy and Martin Stewart at the Town House, The Tollbooth, St Machar’s Cathedral and People of Ahandberdeen who attended workshops, gave location ideas and granted us access to the city.

Established in 2008, Secret Cities is a Curated Place Project.

All works ©2017 Curated Place / Andrew Brooks / Adelle Stripe. www.CuratedPlace.com

Glen has run the business for twenty years and the shop’s interior has not been altered since it first opened. The mahogany fittings, mirrors, glass cabinets, and even the nicotine-stained ceiling, have not changed in a hundred years. Bunches of old tobacco leaves adorn the ceilings, and 20th century posters and cigarette advertising are displayed. Many brands no longer exist, but 1950s posters of Gauloises and Gitanes still hang from the walls. Signs such as ‘You May Smoke Here’, ‘Thank You for Smoking’ and ‘Go Ahead, Smoke If You Wish’ are fixed to the drawers and pillars.

Herbert Love tobacconist on King Street may possibly be the last of its kind in Scotland. It opened in 1917 and this year marks its centenary. The shop’s windows are blacked out from the street, and it is only from inside that this treasure-trove of tobacco history can truly be experienced.

The shop’s name was an amalgamation of Herbert and Love, a historic chain of tobacconists in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The grand Avery scales weigh out different types of tobacco – for pipe and cigarette, from the jars behind the desk. One brand smells of pure molasses, other varieties include cherry, vanilla, coffee caramel and coconut. In 2017 the government will outlaw all flavoured tobaccos, including menthol. Most of the tobacco on-sale is manufactured in Cumbria or in Sheffield, on Snuff Mill Lane.

Customers can still buy pipes, lighters, papers, cigars and cigarillos. Some buy herbal nicotine-free tobacco, made from natural ingredients such as rose petals and herbs.

There are no e-cigarettes in here, vapes, or any sign of the digital era. It is a time-capsule that reveals the habits and tastes of smokers throughout the modern age.

Herbert Love

One of the most historic Freemason lodges in Scotland is located at 85 Crown Street. The Lodge’s seal dates from 1762 and has the motto “Conceal the secret entrusted to you even when influenced by wine or anger”. Aberdeen has an established tradition of masonry and there are currently twelve lodges in the city, with over two thousand members.

Beneath the Chapter Hall is one of the most curious rooms in the city. The vault is used for secret ceremonies and rituals, and has a domed ceiling. It is circular in shape and decorated with marble and hand-painted symbols. The leaders of Israel’s twelve tribes adorn the walls, which are angled towards the roof. In this space candidates are inducted into the freemasons, with some rituals lasting up to twenty minutes.

Formerly known as The Masonic Temple, the building is constructed from Kemnay Granite and was designed by local architect Harbourne MacLennan in 1908. There is a majestic entrance hall with black and white mosaic floortiling containing astrological symbols. The grand stairway is carved from Austrian Oak and there are three main areas; a Chapter Hall, Provincial Hall, and Craft Hall.

Each has a large squared pavement tiling rug, reflecting the inner sanctum of King Solomon’s temple.

In the Craft Hall, bows are decorated with bare-breasted angels. Candidates looking up from their seats can stare straight into their eyes, which are lowered for modesty.

A stain from a caretaker’s tin of spilled shellac is the only mark on the otherwise pristine ceiling, painted harbour blue.

Marble plinths are placed in the centre of the halls, and the Grand Masters’ chair overlooks proceedings. On their desks rest a series of granite ashlers, in rough and smooth, representing the mind of man, and its potential. Carved columns in ionic and Corinthian styles lay beside them.

The halls are decorated with symbols and signs, each one metaphorical or representative of the heritage of the tradesmen who formed the first members.

Freemasons’ Hall

In 2006 the Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting began to excavate the east end of the building as part of the Mither Kirk Project. It became one of the most significant archaeological digs in Britain and revealed the macabre history beneath the church.

Outside, in the graveyard of St. Nicholas Kirk, skeletons, hourglasses and dead-bells adorn the gravestones. Inside the building, in the recesses of the dig, latticed femurs, fibulars and temporals poke from the soil. Human bone is a strong building material, when the first walls were built, if graves were disturbed beneath, the bodies were packed into the foundations of the church. Unlike an ossuary, where bones are displayed in crypts and altars, these skeletal remains fulfilled a far more practical use.

In addition to the building foundations there are over 2000 burials at the site, and scientists have extracted collagen to map their ages and illnesses. Bones beneath the sacristy reflect diseases common at the time of death; scoliosis, prostate cancer, ulceration, syphilis (which leaves characteristic lesions on the bone), and badly-healed fractures. One skull was devoid of a nasal cartilage; its top jaw was also badly damaged. Another died in childbirth, with the baby’s head engaged and ready for birth.

St. Mary’s Chapel adjoins the main site and was known as Our Lady of Pity before the reformation. It was established by nuns who meditated on the mental anguish of Mary beneath the pietà on a stained glass window. It was later used as a prison. In the 1600s women were chained to an iron witches’ ring, and outside crowds of people stared in, mocking those awaiting their fate. A gargoyle of a woman with a scold’s bridle stares down from the corbal. One gravestone in this chapel contains the engraving ‘Death, the best of blessings.’

St. Nicholas Kirk Dig

Clock Tower at St. Nicholas Kirk

During King James VI’s rule, the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597 took place. King James had a voracious interest in the subject and considered witchcraft to be a form of theology. He believed that all witches deserved death by fire.

William Shakespeare visited the city at this time with a company of comedians at the behest of the King. His experiences formed the inspiration for the Weird Sisters in Macbeth.

Throughout this period Aberdonians were tortured and forced confessions formed the basis of dittays, the accusations used for executions. In the old steeple of St. Nicholas, the site of the current clock tower, the first witches were imprisoned. One of the accused, Mantieth, hung herself here. There are many substantial records relating to the witch trials (in secretary hand) that show receipts for each execution; the provost’s signature for bitumen and tar barrels, a hangman’s fee or the blacksmith’s bill for forging shackles.

Women were dragged to their death from the steeple by cart as huge crowds jeered from the street. Many of their imaginary crimes were based in gossip from rural districts at the time. Some were charged with making healing potions, leading dances in the countryside, causing cows to milk venom, or raising destructive winds at sea. Others simply were born with a birthmark, known as the mark of the devil.

The clock tower’s original spire, built in the 1500s, was made from lead-covered wood. In 1874 it burned down when a chandelier caught fire and its peal of bells destroyed. The granite façade and current steeple bear little resemblance to what went before. It is now the home to one of the largest carillons in Britain and 48 bells which ring out across the city.

Only the ghost of Mantieth remains.

Kings Quad

Built in 1498, King’s College Chapel, in Old Aberdeen, is situated in the heart of the university. This medieval design has an iconic crowned roof which symbolises King James IV’s imperial authority over that of Rome’s. Slate, lead and stone support the crown which was replaced after a severe storm in 1633.

Beneath the impressive canopy, in the chapel below, three consecration crosses mark the Five Wounds of Christ, a focus for religious devotion in the middle ages. The formal design reflects Solomon’s Temple and its choir stalls and rood screen are reminders of the building’s prereformation history.

The college’s founder, bishop Elphinstone, is buried beneath the chancel. He was responsible for the introduction of printing in Scotland, and established the university via a papal bull as there was an urgent need for doctors, lawyers and schoolmasters. It was dedicated to the pursuit of truth in the service of others.

However, it has been revealed that the bishop’s body is missing from the site. In the 19th century a professor recorded that the chapel’s floor had been lifted for dampproofing and the tomb was empty, having obviously been disturbed. At St. Machar’s cathedral, only a stone’s throw up the cobbled streets, a watch-house is situated at the cemetery gates. Here, night guards protected corpses from a profitable bodysnatching trade which took place in Aberdeen in the 1700s. It remains to be seen if bishop Elphinstone’s remains suffered a similar fate.

Nestled in Duthie Park, by the banks of the River Dee, the David Welch winter gardens contain a vast collection of tropical plants, bromeliads and cacti.

Amongst the memorial seats and groups of giant euphorbia that reach towards the glass ceiling is a maguey, buried in the gravel. This agave was used by native tribes in Mexico to create pens, nails, needles, and string to sew and weave with. Its leaf tea is a tincture to ease constipation. The cacti’s syrup is most famously used to make mezcal - liquor developed by conquistadors - which contains a moth’s larvae in the bottle. This sacred plant was once known as the elixir of the gods.

First built in 1899, the greenhouses were destroyed in a storm in the 1960s and has since been refurbished. One of the most spectacular displays is the Arid House, a warm sanctuary in the midst of brisk Scottish winter.

Within this magical space a prickly pear bears ‘tuna’ sweet fruits which are often used to make candles, hangover cures, flavoured jelly and revitalising drinks. In preColombian times the prickly pear was cultivated as a host plant for cochineal insects, whose blood contained a valuable dye used to colour fabric in shades of red and purple throughout Latin America.

At the Arid House’s brow is the Tropical House, where luscious green leaves and birds of paradise shoot from the darkest corners. This steamy environment hosts aroids, bromeliads, and a selection of ginger, turmeric and cardamom. Stag horn ferns hang from the walls, their leaves creating shadows as the light begins to fade.

Creepers, trees with eyes, flies with human faces, and flamingo flower orchids add to the mystical atmosphere of the greenhouse which is lovingly tendered by a team of gardeners and horticulturalists.

Some plants in the Arid House have been grown from seed since the 1970s; one distinctive cactus was planted by the Argentinean Miss World of 1979, Silvana Suarez.

Winter Gardens