History of Denmore Park

Denmore House was built in 1790 as a hunting lodge for Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon  (nicknamed Cock of the North) who formed the Gordon Highlanders in response to the  threat posed by the French Revolution, on 10-02-1794 as a regiment of Highland Foot  infantry. The raising of the regiment was assisted by the Duchess Jean, who is said to  have offered the King’s shilling with the added incentive of a kiss to prospective  recruits. 

Alexander’s son George, born in 1770, was the Marquis of Huntly and became Colonel  of the new regiment. He became the 5th Duke of Gordon in 1827 and his statue stands  in Golden Square. Fashioned from Kemnay granite this was the first granite statue in  Scotland. The Regiment was originally numbered the 100th but later re-named the 92nd Gordon Highlanders. They fought Napoleon’s army at Waterloo, led by Lt. Colonel  John Cameron of Fassiefern. Bydand Place and Fassiefern Avenue commemorate the  Denmore Park link to the Gordon Highlanders, Bydand being the Regimental motto  (meaning stay and fight). 

Denmore house was built as a shooting and fishing lodge for the officers of the  Gordons, whose barracks was on the Ellon Road. The Silverburn was dammed to  provide a loch (the lower loch) which was stocked with trout. The hill was wooded and  stocked with game birds. 

The estate was purchased in the mid-19th century by George Charles Moir, younger  son of George Moir, who was the 5th Laird of Scotstown and Spittal. George Charles  Moir, born in 1771, was a successful merchant in Bahia in Brazil and on return to  Scotland he bought Denmore Park. In 1828 he married Mary Agnew Bruce, the only  daughter of Sir William Bruce of Stenhouse, and they had two daughters.  

Denmore House was substantially extended as a family house by George Charles  Moir. He also planted numerous trees (mainly Scots Pines and Beeches) and shrubs  at that time (including the many rhododendrons which still grow around the estate). The estate owned a significant amount of farmland extending to the north sea coast,  which was mainly used for grazing. These farms lay to the east of the Ellon Road. 

Mary Agnew Bruce’s brother was Sir Michael Bruce, 7th Laird of Scotstown and Spittal  the husband of Isabella. The lived at nearby Scotstown House, built by Archibald  Simpson for Sir Michael but now a ruin in the woodland to the north of the the  Perwinnes Moss recycling centre. The Moirs were related to the Moirs of Stoneywood  and the Moir family can be traced back to 1495 when the University of Aberdeen King’s  College was founded. 

Thomas Adam (1842-1919), an Aberdeen shipowner, bought the Denmore estate from  the Moir family in about 1885. His son, Thomas Livingston Adam (1880-1959), inherited the family business but it seems it was not in a flourishing condition and was  liquidated in 1920. Despite this, T. L. Adam was able to re-model the house c. 1920  to the designs of George Robertson Mackenzie (1879-1963) of Aberdeen, his brother in-law. On his death the estate passed to his only son, Major Thomas Adam (1914- 1985) who sold it in 1972 to Salveson Homes Ltd. 

Salveson envisaged creating a village community with facilities such as a clubhouse  and tennis courts, managed by the residents, based on Delamere Estate, a similar scheme in Cheshire. In 1975, the Denmore Park Trust Deed was registered, laying  down the rules whereby plot owners were able to contribute to the costs of running the  estate and Denmore Park Management Ltd was responsible for administration and  maintenance, the Trustees being voted on by the residents. Building work on the  estate began in 1975 with the first residents taking up residence in 1975. The grand  opening of the clubhouse, attended by Major Adam, was in 1981. He was apparently  surprised to learn that the average price of a house was greater than what he received  from Salveson. 

Denmore House stood on the plots now occupied by 1 Lochside Avenue and 71  Lochside Road and was demolished by housebuilder Salveson Homes in 1979. Salveson Homes was bought by Tilbury Homes (Scotland) in 1986. The original  entrance to the estate was close to where the Baptist Church now stands, with the  road down to the house now the wide path from the church to Lochside Road. There  was a sawmill where the Baptist Church stands. The old road can still be seen,  bordered by the original dry stane dyke. 

The Silverburn ran along what is now Lochside Drive and the area between Lochside  Road and Lochside Drive was infilled by the builders with the Silverburn now in a  culvert between Lochside Drive and the top loch. This allowed the creation of the  circular Lochside Road and the entrance to the estate. 

Aberdeen City Council Archaeology Department kindly gave Jim access to its  database in early 2002; this includes maps of several vintages covering Denmore  Park. In the 1869 and 1870 maps the Silverburn is shown in its present position, apart  from its present underground section in Lochside Drive. The 1900 map shows that the  lower loch had been created but the upper loch had not. The 1967 map does not show  the upper loch but it had been created and had virtually completely silted up by then.  

In a 1978 report by Mr R. G. Newton, a Denmore Park resident and Senior Lecturer in  geography at Aberdeen College of Education, the upper loch is described as being re colonised by marsh vegetation with the Silverburn flowing along its southern flank. In  doing so it had fulfilled its role as a silt trap to protect the lower loch. The silting of the  upper loch is a continuous process and the loch will have to be periodically drained  and the silt removed as was done in the springs of 1998 and 2022. 

Under the leadership of the late Hugh Grant in 1998 the original top loch wooden dam,  which leaked badly, was replaced by a stone dam and a new stone bridge built to  replace the rickety wooden bridge was had been condemned by the insurers. Many  residents were involved over several months in this major project and the bridge was  informally named Grampas Bridge, to reflect that a large part of the work was done by  a small group of grandfathers, the name inspired by 2 year old Ryan Steventon. The  project was completed a few days before that year’s Gala Day. 

The lower loch used to incorporate a water wheel used for pumping water to the estate  farms. A second water wheel was believed to exist to generate electricity but its  location is unknown, the drop of the Silverburn at the bottom of Fassiefern Avenue is  a likely location.

NE Scotland contains many topographic features produced during and after the last  glaciation of Scotland about 10,000 years ago. The Denmore Park hill is a fine example  of an esker, produced at the front of a glacier, so marks the maximum eastern extent  of the glacier which flowed from the Cairngorm mountains to the west. When the ice  melted the ancestral Silverburn cut down into the very hard Dalradian metamorphic  rocks forming the gorge now occupied by the upper loch. The Dalradian is about 500  million years old and formed from deep (25 kilometre) burial of marine sands and muds The melting would have taken place over a couple of hundred years. The Silverburn  would have been about 70m wide and 5 - 10m deep. 

Information thanks to Ron Findlay, Hazel Ramage & Jim Ritchie