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Ballater’s Royal Station destroyed in overnight blaze

May 12 2015

Ballater’s Royal Station destroyed in overnight blaze
An historic railway station in Ballater has been gutted by an overnight blaze which has reportedly destroyed as much as 90 per cent of the structure.

Around 50 firefighters tackled the fire at its peak but were unable to save the building, which had been converted into a shop, restaurant and museum following its closure in 1966.

John Morgan, group manager for Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, said: "On arrival crews were faced with a well-developed fire which had already broken through the roof - and the old structure of the building assisted the fire to spread through the property."

“It's been very difficult for us to enter the property because of safety reasons so it's difficult to make any judgement as to what has been damaged and what hasn't.”

4 Comments

Big Chantelle
#1 Posted by Big Chantelle on 12 May 2015 at 14:03 PM
Let's hope it's rebuilt as it was architecturally.

I bet the concrete modernist brigade are already drawing up plans for a zinc clad white rendered masterpiece. Shudder.
Jon
#2 Posted by Jon on 12 May 2015 at 16:16 PM
@#1 Big Chantelle,

For a change I agree with you. This was a lovely little building and integral to the charm of Ballater. Anything less that a full restoration would be very disrespectful.

However, I doubt anybody in your phantom concrete modernist brigade (must be the worst superhero/villain name in history btw) would want a new building in its place. I would be more worried about unscrupulous developers looking to make a quick buck out of newly opened up prime real estate. Money would be on a Stewart Milne or *insert generic developer" block of flats and "mixed use" within the year.
CMB
#3 Posted by CMB on 13 May 2015 at 13:28 PM
I hope they put a zinc clad white rendered concrete box designed in the Modernist style there as the replacement. Thats right - three layers of external wall finish, concrete, then white render over the concrete, then zinc cladding on top of the white render which is over the concrete. Mmmmm, boxy.
modernish
#4 Posted by modernish on 14 May 2015 at 16:34 PM
@#3 CMB

Build it and they will come. We need to educate Joe Public that triple clad boxes are they way forward. They only want pastiche because they haven't seen the light, but it would be remiss of us to pander to the whims of the hoi polio. My only plea is make it so modern that's it's futuristic, use more concrete, more zinicish zinc and the purest white render known to man. Me and rest of the brigade are fully behind you brother.

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