“It was once the beating heart of New Aberdour, you know”, Bob Watson says as he walks the ruins of the centuries-old Dower Hotel.
“It was such a bouncing and joyous place. I remember it always being packed at night, with people laughing, singing folk songs and dancing around.”
Fast forward to today, and it’s hard to imagine the hotel bustling with life and noise as you walk through the debris, watching every step to avoid the bits of broken window and slates.
The hotel on the village’s High Street has become a shadow of its former self since its last owners shut the doors for the final time more than a decade ago.
Shattered pieces of furniture and chunks of the ceiling have been left strewn across the floor with rusty pipes and wooden planks sticking out from every wall.
Only a stack of dusty glasses on the bar counter remain intact as a faint memory of the long nights locals once spent there in the company of friends and family.
Mr Watson, who grew up in a farm down New Aberdour beach, recalled the village being a thriving place before all of its focal buildings began to shut one by one.
The 76-year-old said: “People used the Dower Hotel for weddings, festivals, events, or just to get together for a blether over a pint.
“And ever since it closed, it has been a huge miss. It really was like a community hub for all locals.”
New lease of life for derelict hotel
The B-listed building, which is believed to be the first to have been erected during the formation of the planned village in the late 18th Century, was abandoned in 2007.
The closure was the first of many blows to the community, which was “left with nothing” after it lost its local primary school in 2009, as well as its only grocery shop.
In 2013, the former hotel was put on the Buildings at Risk register and advertised for sale after Historic Scotland found it “empty, very damp and in poor overall condition”.
And now – more than 15 years after the last customer crossed its doorstep – help could finally come from an unlikely source.
Clan Baird comes home to serve the community on New Aberdour
The Clan Baird Society Worldwide has revealed a £2 million revamp project to bring the hotel back to its former splendor.
Members of the non-profit organisation have been working with the community council to come up with a plan to transform half of the dilapidated Dower Hotel into a vibrant community hub, with activities for all.
The clan had been looking for a place in the area to create “something meaningful and serve the community”, and reconnect with their north-east roots for the last four years.
While most of its present members currently reside in the US, it was these lands that had been the seat of Clan Baird for more than 200 years in the 16th-18th Century.
After their defeat during the Jacobite Rising in 1745, however, William Baird, Laird of Auchmedden, was forced to sell the estates and the clan was banished from the land.
Debra Baird, Clan Baird Society Worldwide convener, said: “The Bairds lost everything after the Rising, and most of us were transported to the States, so we are now trying to pull everything back together.
“We’ve been gone for almost 300 years and now we want to come home.
“This area has so much history and we want not only to preserve it, but also to promote it – and taking over the Dower Hotel is a good step forward in doing that.
“We have lots of ideas about how we can serve the community and that’s our main goal – to create a vibrant place for them, while also have a place for us when we come here.”
‘Creating a unique place for the area’
Stood outside the hotel, Laura Lynn Kerner shows off a novel-thick notebook with statistics, drawings and all sorts of ideas.
The 80-year-old and her husband Jim jetted 4,000 miles from Athens, near Nashville, to New Aberdour to visit the crumbling historic building, along with Ms Baird.
It’s far cry from the bright lights of the Honky Tonk Highway in her Tennessee hometown, but as the project’s “strategic planner” it was a journey she had to make.
Mrs Kerner spent the last few months gathering information, carrying out surveys and talking to locals to fully embrace the ways of the community and learn what they need.
“What the New Aberdour community wants is a place where they can come to be together, because there is nothing here,” she said. “And that’s exactly what we are going to do.”
Although they will have to “go down to the rock” to salvage the historic building, the group is determined to preserve its overall look and repurpose it for the same use.
Plans include refurbishing the ground-floor restaurant and creating five or six rooms on the second floor to serve as a fully functioning hotel.
A workshop studio for artists to hold sessions, or sell their wares, as well as meeting rooms for locals are also in the pipeline.
While the project is still in the early stages, the group has also shared ideas about helping young families in the village with daycare and activities for youngsters.
There will also be a particular emphasis on the “unique” history and culture in the area to attract more tourists and increase the economic draw to New Aberdour.
“The new Dower Hotel is going to be a unique place for the area,” Mrs Kerner said. “We want to make it attractive to bring tourists to the area, but also preserve its culture and history.
“It can be a space for storytelling, lessons, activities for children and teenagers, daycare, as well as a hotel and a restaurant.
“This could also be an outlet for artists to come and sell their work – knitting, painting, silver smithing, and all sort of other crafts – and a venue for events and festivals.
“It’s a challenging project, but I think it’s doable, and I think it could be an example for other small villages of what they can achieve.”
Conversation