A series of 10 new trail guides for Aberdeen along with a new smartphone trail guides feature were today launched which will help locals and visitors discover places full of history, heritage, and beautiful green spaces.
The family-friendly guides and maps, produced by Aberdeen City Council with help from community groups for some of them, are designed to encourage people to walk around our beautiful and historic city and discover – or rediscover – different aspects of the city.
The free GoABZ app, available from Apple’s App Store & Google Play, has been updated to add the new Discover feature which adds many useful smartphone elements and includes every trail in the series. People can explore the city’s highlights with more than 700 points of interest and as a smart travel planner, GoABZ can also help people get to and from the trails.
The new or revised trail booklets, which are available as printable downloads from the council’s website, include:
- NEW Torry and Woodside Trails – both historic areas which in 1891 joined Old and New Aberdeen to form today’s city;
- NEW Lower Deeside Trail – follow the old roads, railway and river through the villages of Aberdeen’s Royal Deeside;
- NEW Aberdeen Denburn Trail – explore the course of the small stream that shaped a city;
- NEW Kingswells & The Four Hills, and Kincorth & Tullos Hills – leisurely hillwalking within the city boundaries;
- REVISED & EXPANDED Aberdeen Coastal Trail – more than 20 new entries and highlighting Cove Bay;
- REVISED & EXPANDED Aberdeen Granite Trail, Aberdeen Maritime Trail, Sculpture & Curios Trail.
The new trail guides, many routes of which can be cycled, mean there is now a total of 22 in the series covering many historical and natural gems around the city.
Items in the new trail guides include the remains of a motte and bailey castle, a pair of whale jaw bones in a park, where the author Nan Shepherd lived who is described as having written “the finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain”, and the whaling ship origins of the Rob Roy statue at Peterculter.
Other items featured are Rubislaw Quarry which is one of the largest man-made holes in Europe, why Aberdeen became known as one of the worst places in the country for prosecuting Quakers (in the 1670s, just about every male adult Quaker was imprisoned at some point), and 4,000-year-old Bronze Age burial cairns.
The Lord Provost of Aberdeen Barney Crockett said: “We have an amazing history in Aberdeen along with many green areas and stunning buildings so it’s fantastic these new trail guides have been produced showing even more of our fascinating heritage.
“The new Discover feature on the GoABZ app will mean people will be able to use their smartphones for discovering every single one of the 700 points of interest on the Trail Guides.
“We want to encourage people to get out and continue to walk or cycle more and we hope these trail guides help folk to get out there and learn what’s in the city particularly at holiday times or weekends.”
The new trail guides complement the existing ones which are Aberdeen Coastal Trail, People & Places Trail, Sculpture & Curios Trail, Boundary Stones Trail, Aberdeen Granite Trail, Old Aberdeen Trail, Aberdeen Maritime Trail, The Green Trail, Aberdeen History Trail, The Jacobite Trail, Bloody Aberdeen Trail, Donside Heritage Trail, Duthie Park Trail, Hazlehead Park Trail, Rosemount Local Area Trail, the Scottish Samurai Trail, and Old Aberdeen Trail.
There will also be digital pdf booklets available online at the City Council’s website at www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/trails plus printed copies. These will become available as venues resume handling stock.
The trail guides and GoABZ Discover are funded by Smarter Choices, Smarter Places (SCSP), which is Paths for All’s programme to increase active and sustainable travel throughout Scotland. The programme is grant-funded by Transport Scotland. The current SCSP match fund is Cycling Walking Safer Routes (CWSR) which is also funded by Transport Scotland. CWSR aims to improve the uptake of walking, cycling and wheeling in Scotland.