Aviemore Village, The Aviemore Centre

Aviemore village has a variety of hotels, pub’s, restaurants and cafe’s for eating and entertainment.

Every night the whole village is lit up with fairy lights and snow flakes, it provides a real holiday atmosphere.

Aviemore was a quiet little village until the 1960’s when ski-ing took off with a vengeance. Now it is a bustling and very busy holiday destination. The beauty of Aviemore is that it caters for everyone and for those that like to spend time in bars, pubs, restaurants and clubs in the evenings it is the ideal holiday destination.

When the weather is good there are an awful lot of out door pursuits available and all set in the most beautiful surroundings.

When the weather is bad then there are visitor centres and exhibitions all over the place.

The people are friendly and helpful and their love of the area shows.

The Aviemore Centre (extracted from Wikipedia)
The Aviemore Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1950, and its site and that of its Golf course were used in the 1960s for the construction of the Aviemore Centre.

The Aviemore Centre was opened by Lady Fraser of Allander in 1966, (widow of Sir Hugh Fraser – House of Fraser). “The Centre”, as it became affectionately known, quickly developed into a major Scottish tourist destination, and in its heyday Royalty were regular visitors, including Prince Charles and Princess Anne who attended Royal Hunt Balls hosted in the Aviemore Centre’s Osprey Rooms.

The very popular BBC TV show “It’s A Christmas Knockout” was held in the complex twice, in 1971 hosted by David Vine and in 1977 hosted by Stuart Hall, but on the second occasion the lack of snow meant that the local fire brigade were brought in to flood Allander Square with foam to give the illusion of snow cover.

Within the Centre there was an international competition standard ice skating and curling rink, home to the Aviemore Blackhawks and Aviemore Blues hockey teams (whom recently reformed in a charity match played in Inverness), a 25m Swimming pool, “Santa Claus Land” (a Santa Claus theme park featuring a resident Santa 365 days a year), a cinema/theatre, bars, restaurants, nightclubs and discothèques, shops including “Cairdsport” (run by Sandy Caird, who brought the first ski shop and ski school to Aviemore), Allander Square with its concrete fountains, a dry ski slope, crazy golf, and a Go-kart track. However the lack of guaranteed snow meant that the anticipated boom for the centre was short-lived. This, coupled with a lack of investment over the decades and the quickly-dated 1960s architecture, began losing the Aviemore Centre custom. Landscaping within the Aviemore Centre, now gone.

Related Posts

Add Comment