Peterhead,crime capital of the NorthEast

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Saturday 11th July
Peterhead,crime capital of the NorthEast
Alan,our host in Edinburgh and a part time circuit judge taking in Peterhead,had warned us that Peterhead with its maximum security HM Prison,was a town of some criminal repute.
It was only 35 miles or so up the coast so we planned the morning in Aberdeen city to take in some shopping as this could be the last occasion for a couple of weeks that we may have time for some retail therapy.
The weather today is a grey overcast and it’s not very warm at 12 deg.However this is Aberdeenshire and they say that this coast has the coolest and wettest weather in Scotland and probably in the UK.
Finding a park was easy and we walked into the CBD and a shopping mall where M&S was the anchor shop.This was too much for Gretchen having been deprived of mall shopping for so many weeks.I managed to drag her away half an hour later,with the credit card intact, as there was more to see in the city before our 2 hours on the meter was up.
The main shopping street was busy now with people dressed for the cool temperature.Its hard to believe that the shops sell any of the summer clothing they have on offer.We assume that the momen who buy the skimpy bikinis do so because they are taking a summer holiday in Spain and not Scotland!!!
Aberdeen buildings are principally constructed of a dark grey granite and when the sky is as overcast as today it they don’t help lift the drabness of the scene.Its no wonder people from here enjoy the wide open and green spaces on NZ when they travel abroad.
The second largest granite building in the world,a college built in the 1700’s,is currently under renovation and being converted to offices for the city council.It was certainly a dramatic looking tall building and it was good to note that the facade to the street is being kept unchanged to retain its historic look.
On our way out of the city heading north we dropped in on the historic Bridge of Don,a stone structure that was built in 1385.In days gone by it would have been the only bridge over the Don River and today it no longer carries traffic other than pedestrians.However its another one of those amazing structures we have seen on this adventure that have been around for hundreds of years and are still in use.
We had plenty of time to do the 35 miles so after a short run on the A90 we turned off the main road to the A975 which followed the coast much closer than the main route.
We took the B9003 down to the coast itself at Collieston and had lunch sitting on the tailgate of RR enjoying the views out to a calm North Sea.The weather has improved a little from Aberdeen as the sky wasn’t quite so leaden looking although the temperature was still struggling to stay in the low teens!!
Collieston was a cute little seaside settlement with a solid looking seawall protecting a small fishing fleet from the ravages of the North Sea which we are sure challenge the people and their livelihoods on this rather exposed coastline.
Further on we passed a BP shore establishment at Cruden Bay for either gas or oil coming from one of its rigs off the coast.The rig wasn’t visible from the shore but that may have been because of the hazy and grey sky.Interestingly the tanks etc making up the establishment weren’t that heavily protected with just a tall fence and some barbed wire.There didn’t appear to be anyone on the site!!
Next stop was at Port Erroll as the map showed “Slains Ruins” to be nearby.We could see the structures from a distance and so made for the beach thinking there would be a track to take us to view the ruins.
Not so.After climbing the bank above the small harbour we could see the ruins were still a good way off in the distance so we drove on thinking that there must be a road down to it somewhere ahead.
A mile or so up the road we found a small car parking area and hiked off down the farm road that led to the ruins perched on the edge of the sea cliff.The ruins were actually fenced off but someone had opened the gate and as there were other people looking the place over we thought we would do too considering the 15 minutes walk from the car park to get here.
Whilst a lot of the building had decayed over the years it was still obvious that in its day in the early 1700’s it had been a grand home.We had only a small amount of history of the place and it seems its owner in the late 1800’s had gone broke and had vacated the home leaving it to decay over the years.
We wandered through the house and lost count of the number of fireplaces in the 40 odd rooms that made up the 3 story building.The place was now just a shell but it was easy with a bit of imagination to think what the place would have been like in its heyday.
The front of the home sat right on the cliff edge with a drop of about 100 feet to the sea.The main entry was at what would have looked like the rear of the house and was probably a large entrance hall given the size of a room inside what was left of a substantial archway.
Onward and we rejoined the A90 again before splitting off to the A982 to enter Peterhead after passing the ominous looking HM Prison on the outskirts of the town.
Peterhead was for many years a North Sea fishing port and even today still boasts a large fleet.However in the last 30 years or so since gas and oil became the big earner in this part of the world the town has grown on petrodollars.Unfortunately with it has come sterotype tenement looking housing and as Alan had said, a whole lot of crime.
We found our hotel on the northern end of town arriving at the same time guests for a highland wedding were gathering.The reception room had been set up for well over 150 people and the head table for the bride and groom and their attendants had at least 15 seats.They certainly do their weddings well in this part of the world.Many of the men were dressed in their tartan formal kilts with white shirts and bow ties.It looked like it was going to be a grand affair and we were pleased that our room was in the lodge well away from the main building where the wedding reception would take place.
The microwave would be back in use tonight so we needed to go shopping for dinner and decided at the same time to take the shopping area in and also lighthouse and harbour.
The shopping area hadn’t grown with the population although we presumed there must have been more shops elsewhere which we didn’t find.Some of the shops showed signs of the current hard economic times and had closed up and this together a couple being boarded up after the windows had been smashed, didn’t help the appearance of the shopping area.
The harbour was full of small fishing trawlers within the extensive sea wall which had notices all over it warning people not to use the path or roadway if waves were crashing over.This would be when the North Sea showed its real colours!!
The oil rig servicing area was full of rusty huge reels that would have had hosing wound round them.There were two large ocean going vessels with helicopter landing platforms attached to the stern area of the ships tied up at the wharf.
We tried to get into the lighthouse but it was gated off and so had to be content with some photos and video from the roadside.
We were concerned that the highland wedding might be noisy but that wasn’t happening when we returned to the hotel and we hoped that that would be the way it would stay overnight.

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Photos

Union Street,Aberdeen
Main shopping street of Aberdeen

Second biggest granite building in the world
Built as a school now under renovation for the city council offices

Collieston
Seaside village north of Aberdeen

Comments

[Leebee]

Wow you make both places sound really, really appealing. I dont think that I will be adding Aberdeen to my list of must visit places..... ore Peterhead for that matter.

[Whiskers]

Largest granite building in the world
Apparently it is in Spain but not sure where so will to Google to find out and then visit if its on our adventure trail.The Aberdeen building was very impressive in size but not so much in looks.

[Fraser]

Factually incorrect
It becomes very apparent, as you make your way through this article, that it is based on 'conversations' rather than facts. Peterhead does not have 'stereotype tenament looking houses' - There are flats in the town but they are very old (think Victorian style) and certainly not new inclusions due to 'petrodollars'. Most of the accommodation is large houses. The shopping centre is not decaying due to 'the current hard economic times' - mostpeople in Peterehad choose to shop in Aberdeen or further afield. Peterhead is a rich town and many peple choose shop elsewhere. Having said that, the local goverment bodies have made no attempt to improve the twon centre and to attempt to retain much of the wealth within the town. Peterhead is not the criminal capital of the North East - you should really explain how you aremeasuring this. Serious crime? Murders etc? I think you need to look elsewhere. Weather - you have got your facts completely wrong - the ABerdeen shire coast does not havet he 'wettest weather in Scotland or the UK' This is totally inaccurate. As everyone knows the WEST COAST is the rainy part of Scotland. It's no accident that they call Glasgow 'Raintown'. The Western Isles are very rainsoaked, whoe the east coast (ie, Aberdeen all the way to Edinburgh and beyond) are dry by comparison. There is no point in writing and article like this if your primary pusopse is to make it sound like a travel adventure (ie, visting a dangerous town with a prision). You could create anarticle on virtually any city or large town in the UK with this was the only aim.

[ian bailey]

Was searching for an up-to-date photo of the Oil Rig Support Base which I designed and supervised for ARUNTA Ltd. and the ' burghers of Peterhead ' in 1973 ! but where has it gone !!!!!.....demolished ? blown away ?

[Whiskers]

Oil Rig Base
Although it has been over a year since we passed through Peterhead I do recall that the oil servicing base was still there although there wasn't a lot of activity.I think I may have other photos and video which may give more close up pictures of the base area.

[Whiskers]

Peterhead
I am sorry you have viewed my blog report in a negative sense.I did actually visit the town and stayed there albeit briefly.Sure,I had earlier in our trip had a conversation with a court judge who sat on trials in Peterhead on a 4 to 6 week cycle and travelled there from Falkirk to do so. However I don't believe that influenced my view of the town. What I found interesting was that with all the money spent on establishing a base to service the oil fields that the spin off to smarten up the shopping area and some of the homes in the adjacent area of the town was not evident.Perhaps whoever was in council authority or the MP for the area at the time could have got a better deal for the local community. Sure the town was dissapointing in its atrractiveness to a visitor but I still enjoyed immensely my journey around the east coast of Scotland and for that matter all the areas we travelled to in Scotland.