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The "eyesores".

EYESORE. Visually offensive or ugly thing. esp. a building. Says my dictionary.

I've no doubt that every city, town and village throughout Scotland has them, they provide visitors with a dim view of the place. But, What can be done about them?

"Spillers" old factory, Barrhead.

The above photograph shows the old Spillers factory in Barrhead, for many years the source of employment for the people of Barrhead. Unfortunately in 2004 the factory closed and eventually the site was planned for housing.

I do of course accept that the financial problems that are being felt by most at the moment will have brought to a halt the plans that were made in better times, but, at present the building is the first view of Barrhead that visitors to the town arriving via the Hurlet from Glasgow see.

East Renfrewshire Council have recently spent a lot of money on improvements to Barrhead of which the locals can be proud, Barrhead has a lot of historical churches and buildings, on its doorstep it has the Dams to Darnley country park, but, what can be done with eyesores.

More information about Barrhead at my google site, https://sites.google.com/site/barrheadscotland/home/barrhead-scotland

Tags: barrhead, eyesores, spillers

Comment by Placebook Scotland on July 13, 2011 at 12:08: The shame is that I bet it was once a vibrant and bustling building which would have been a good entrance to the town. Could actually make cool flats.

Comment by trevor downer on July 13, 2011 at 15:21: Yes it would have done once but has probably now deteriated beyond that and will have to be knocked down, pity.

Comment by Placebook Scotland on July 18, 2011 at 11:54: I was driving through Perth on the weekend and saw a few buildings that made me think of this post. There were 1960's flats which were probably very exciting buildingd in there time and stuill had an interesting structure but the harling had deterioirated the paintwork was peeling and the windows had not been replaced and instead of a vibrant and interesting series of dwellings it looked seedy. Such a shame. I like modern and 20th century architecture ( within reason) but it needs to be maintained to keep it looking good. If not we could find in 50 years we have lost the evidence of a whole period of architectural history.

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Comment by trevor downer on July 19, 2011 at 0:05: As I posted, they are everywhere. 1960 flats had no real beauty or artistic merit in my book, just a box to move folk from even worse places although the folk that were given these new flats at the time were delighted with them. I think that we should be very selective in buildings that we try to retain for historical reasons, in this age we do have the ability to photograph every thing for later generations to look back at.

I presume that the Perth flats are due for demolition to be replaced by dwellings that the original flat dwellers will not be able to afford.

In Barrhead they demolished a similar block after first trying to make it look better by painting it. Actually they were very nice flats but unfortunately some of the folk living in them were not and never appreciated them.

Comment by Erik Zoha on July 25, 2011 at 20:57: Good to have you back with a permanent web address PBS.

Comment by Erik Zoha on July 25, 2011 at 20:57: Are they the flats near the Perth bus station?

Comment by Placebook Scotland on August 9, 2011 at 9:29: Deeper in, behind B&Q - you can still see what the architects were thinking!

Did you know that Perth is on the Towns program on BBC, I think it is this week on Thursday but you can always get them on iplayer.

The "eyesores".

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