Aviemore
Until the mid 1960's Aviemore was a sleepy
and
unremarkable village about an hour's travel southeast of Inverness, on
the A9 and the Inverness-Perth railway line. Then the developers moved
in and transformed the place. The slopes of Cairngorm, a 4,000 ft
mountain
seven miles to the east, were developed for skiing and Aviemore itself
was virtually doubled in size as a new holiday centre took shape behind
the village. The Aviemore Centre consisted of hotels, shops, chalets,
indoor
sports facilities, a dry ski slope, a cinema, bars and restaurants, and
a craft centre.
The Aviemore Centre generated a lot of
flak.
Not only did it more or less eclipse the original village, it pitched
itself
downmarket and, some would say, appeared to regard itself as the
Blackpool
of the Scottish Highlands. Its critics were less kind and denounced the
concrete blocky appearance of certain parts of the development. There
were
tales of scams, corruption and sharp employment practices. A new
shopping
parade in the village itself added to the gloom, being very much from
the
cinder-block school of architecture. I was always in two minds about
the
Aviemore centre itself. Parts of it were imaginative and tastefully
landscaped
but there was a definite atmosphere of shabbiness about the place and
its
visitors.
By the mid 1990's the place was looking
distinctly
tatty and badly in need of refurbishment. But I was astonished to
arrive
for a short holiday in late 1999 to find that much of the Aviemore
centre
had been razed to the ground. Two years later little had changed and
the
site was a vast car park. Elsewhere in the village, though, things were
looking up. A second and much more tastefully constructed shopping mall
had taken shape adjacent to the railway station, itself refurbished. A
spanking new supermarket stood opposite, and other new developments and
outbreaks of imaginative landscaping were transforming the village,
which
was at last shaking off its downmarket image.
The true attraction of Aviemore, of
course,
is its setting rather than its facilities. With the Cairngorms,
Glenmore
and Rothiemurchus close by, Aviemore is a base for a superb range of
valley,
forest, hill and mountain walks as well as bird watching, sailing,
skiing,
cycling and other outdoor pursuits.
 |
The Aviemore centre, seen on one of
my earlier
visits in 1978. |
 |
Part of the Aviemore centre. The
Pinewood
Restaurant (depicted) was an agreeable little cafeteria in its day. The
building still stands but the Pinewood itself is long gone. |
 |
The Aviemore Post-House Hotel,
standing to
the rear of the Aviemore centre, escaped the recent outbreak of
demolition. |
 |
The chalets of the Aviemore Motel,
with the
Cairngorms forming the backdrop. |
 |
Landscaping within the Aviemore
Centre, now
gone. |
|
This part of the Aviemore centre
did look
good and I enjoyed spending time here. The building to the left housed
Aviemore's cinema, and I remember seeing the second Star Wars movie
here
in 1980. Everything you see here has now been demolished. |
|
The indoor sports hall and the
central piazza,
all gone now. |
|
One of Aviemore's "concrete block"
hotels
- still standing but the shops on its ground floor level are empty and
boarded up. |
|
Moving forward to 1999, and some
imaginative
landscaping just north of the railway station. |
|
This rocky grotto includes a
pedestrian underpass
crossing the railway line, and is rather beautifully lit at night. |
|
A contre-jour shot from the railway
station
in the direction of the Cairngorms. |
Back to Cairngorms index page
This page last updated 28th December 2001
