Gala Fairydean Stadium, Scottish Borders Concrete Building, Modern Architecture Scotland

Fairydean Stadium : Galashiels Building

Modernist Scottish Borders Architecture, Scotland – design by Peter Womersley

7 May 2012

Fairydean Stadium Galashiels

Design: Peter Womersley, architect

Galashiels Building by Peter Womersley

photos © Adrian Welch

Fairydean Stadium, Galashiels FC, Borders, Scotland
Date built: 1965

This building is designed in a similar architecture style to Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh. The raw shuttering of the concrete, the powerful angular forms and the focus on cantilever and buttresses in tension are dominant.

photos © Adrian Welch

This building was controversially listed by Historic Scotland in late 2006.

photos © Adrian Welch

The current treatment of the building is unsympathetic, we don’t know the history of the relationship between owner, occupants and the relevant heritage and planning bodies but a positive solution is required. A lot of detritus has attached itself to the building which requires a strong blast of wind to dislodge.

photos © Adrian Welch

The lower reaches of the building are particularily afflicted by poor quality additions and although the concrete above head height is largely as it was, the graphics between the base and the canopy are incongruous, though some could argue they animate what is a fairly blunt elevation.

photos © Adrian Welch

Peter Womersley was an Englishman who spent his career in a rural village in Scotland. This 20th Cenury architect was reclusive and there is little information yet published on his life and work. He is more well known for his studio pavillion for flamboyant textile designer Bernat Klein which won an RIBA award in 1973.

Peter Womersley

Location: Galashiels, Scotland