We went for a wee wander around Seaton Park today, starting at the Wallace Tower, then following the river path along the River Don, crossing the Brig o’ Balgownie then returning back to the park and up past St Machar’s Cathedral.
I’ve been wanting to visit the Wallace Tower (also known as Blenholm’s Lodging) for some time as it has a fascinating story. Originally built around 1610 as a Z-plan tower house, it stood proudly for more than 300 years in the city centre on the corner of Netherkirkgate and Carnegie’s Brae, about where the M&S food hall used to be before it closed last year.
According to Diane Morgan in Lost Aberdeen, by the 1960s, the area has become a traffic bottleneck, while M&S wanted to expand its retail space. They proposed a new retail building on the site, closing the route to traffic altogether. The scheme also required the removal of the Wallace Tower. M&S funded the deconstruction and reconstruction of the tower several miles away in Tillydrone where it has sat languishing until quite recently.
In what is now a remarkable story of success, a community group in Tillydrone formed a charity called the Tillydrone Community Development Trust, and in 2024 managed to take possession of the tower from Aberdeen City Council following a community asset transfer. Restoration work then began and last year the ground floor was opened to the public with a sympathetic extension added for a cafe, now home to The Liberty Kitchen.
It does look splendid in its new setting but I am nevertheless horrified that the council of the 1960s approved such a lamentable scheme. The replacement M&S building was constructed using, among other materials, RAAC, and is now condemned. M&S has submitted plans to demolish it. This monstrosity did not even last one century, let alone four.
But let’s return to Seaton Park and our walk.
There is quite a lovely walk along the River Don that goes all the way to Brig o’ Balgownie, Scotland’s oldest standing bridge. It is a single-arch medieval stone bridge built in 1329 and possibly by Robert the Bruce though there’s some uncertainty on that point. In any case, the bridge has stood overlooking the River Don for almost exactly 700 years and you can still walk across it today, which is exactly what we did.
After admiring the bridge and surroundings, we walked back through Seaton Park and up past St Machar’s Cathedral, another lovely place to visit but that’ll have to be another day.
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