Abandoned Places I've Seen: Tarlair
I've been doing more poking around online and found more info about the DeJarnette Center and another awesome looking abandoned amusement park in Japan, but I'll post on those a little later when I get the info together. I wrote yesterday about how much I wanted to visit these abandoned places, but when I though about it, I realized I have a couple of neat places under my belt. I won't make these posts as big as the last one; I think I'll tackle these one at a time because I have a few pics.
TARLAIR SWIMMING POOL (Banff, Scotland)
Tarlair is an outside swimming pool located right outside of Banff, Scotland. It was built in the 1930's in what most sites are calling an "Art Deco" style. Banff is my mother's birthplace, and my great-grandmother lived in Portsoy, not far from Banff. I'm fuzzy on the details of when my mother and her parents moved to Brechin, where she grew up, so I guess I'll have to get on that. My mother actually has some of the swimming medals my grandfather won at Tarlair in the late 1930's. He liked the place so much that he named his home in Brechin Tarlair, and handpainted the name over the door. When we visited the house last year, the name was still there. My grandparents passed away close to twenty years ago, but the name is still there.
The pool must have been awesome in its heyday. The Banffshire Journal has a neat pic of it in use, but no one seems to know what year it was. My grandparents and my parents obviously spent some time there, and my brother, who is now in his mid-thirties, says he has dim memories of being there. When I asked him what swimming in the pool was like, he told me he never swam in it. He was too scared. I would be too. The North Sea is friggin' COLD.
The pool was abandoned in the nineties, and it has remained virtually untouched. Some model boat society still has meetings there, but other than that the place is deserted. The day we went was after a massive rain storm. There had been a number of mudslides, and the earth had turned into a quagmire at the entrance. I was not to be deterred; I climbed the rocks along the side and got my pictures.
This is the pool from the cliff overlooking it. It's amazing how the pool just fits right in the cove.
Right off to the left when you go through the gates is a giant weird shaped rock. My mother says it's called Needle Eye (pronounced e, like the letter). I'm standing right in front of it, and you can see how huge it is.
To the right is the snack bar, or what's left of it.
I climbed up there, but there wasn't much to see.
Directly in front is the kiddie pool. There's also some weird climbing rock in the pool next to it. You can see it in the old school photo too.
From the other side:
The dressing rooms are off to the right of the snack bar. You also get a gorgeous view of the ocean.
Alongside the dressing rooms:
It's really sad to see it like this, but I've read that recently it was put on the A-List for preservation. No plans in the works for it yet, but it's nice to know it won't be demolished.
TARLAIR SWIMMING POOL (Banff, Scotland)
Tarlair is an outside swimming pool located right outside of Banff, Scotland. It was built in the 1930's in what most sites are calling an "Art Deco" style. Banff is my mother's birthplace, and my great-grandmother lived in Portsoy, not far from Banff. I'm fuzzy on the details of when my mother and her parents moved to Brechin, where she grew up, so I guess I'll have to get on that. My mother actually has some of the swimming medals my grandfather won at Tarlair in the late 1930's. He liked the place so much that he named his home in Brechin Tarlair, and handpainted the name over the door. When we visited the house last year, the name was still there. My grandparents passed away close to twenty years ago, but the name is still there.
The pool must have been awesome in its heyday. The Banffshire Journal has a neat pic of it in use, but no one seems to know what year it was. My grandparents and my parents obviously spent some time there, and my brother, who is now in his mid-thirties, says he has dim memories of being there. When I asked him what swimming in the pool was like, he told me he never swam in it. He was too scared. I would be too. The North Sea is friggin' COLD.
The pool was abandoned in the nineties, and it has remained virtually untouched. Some model boat society still has meetings there, but other than that the place is deserted. The day we went was after a massive rain storm. There had been a number of mudslides, and the earth had turned into a quagmire at the entrance. I was not to be deterred; I climbed the rocks along the side and got my pictures.
This is the pool from the cliff overlooking it. It's amazing how the pool just fits right in the cove.
Right off to the left when you go through the gates is a giant weird shaped rock. My mother says it's called Needle Eye (pronounced e, like the letter). I'm standing right in front of it, and you can see how huge it is.
To the right is the snack bar, or what's left of it.
I climbed up there, but there wasn't much to see.
Directly in front is the kiddie pool. There's also some weird climbing rock in the pool next to it. You can see it in the old school photo too.
From the other side:
The dressing rooms are off to the right of the snack bar. You also get a gorgeous view of the ocean.
Alongside the dressing rooms:
It's really sad to see it like this, but I've read that recently it was put on the A-List for preservation. No plans in the works for it yet, but it's nice to know it won't be demolished.