Scottish Stone Center Spruced Up

ABERDEEN, Scotland – There’s plenty of history in the numerous granite buildings lining the streets here – and a substantial grant should help preserve that heritage.
The Scotsman of Edinburgh reported in late July that a new trust to promote and refurbish the Granite City’s historic structures received a £750,000 grant from Historic Scotland. The Aberdeen City Heritage Trust, in turn, will offer grants to property owners for work on the buildings.
The trust will also work to raise public awareness of the city’s architecture.
“It is not exaggeration to say that the built heritage is crucial to the well-being of our communities, our tourism industry and in attracting economic investment,” said Frank McAveety, Scottish minister for tourism and culture. “We want the Aberdeen City Heritage Trust to stimulate a dynamic urban environment where traditional and contemporary coexist.”
Granite, quarried from local deposits for more than three centuries, is literally the cornerstone of Aberdeen’s economic development. While other industries, such as deep-sea commercial fishing and North Sea crude-oil production, have supplanted the stone trade, Aberdeen’s gray granite is still used locally and exported worldwide.
Aberdeen is the site of some impressive granite buildings, including Marischal College – cited locally as the largest white-granite building in the world. The mile-long Union Street, running through the heart of the city, contains most of the principal public and commercial structures; and, all of them are built with granite.