HE rose from humble beginnings in Fraserburgh to help lay the foundations of what would become one of the world’s economic goliaths.
Thomas Blake Glover is revered across Japan as a key influence in its transition from Shogunate dictatorship to modernity, and the house which he built on a hillside overlooking Nagasaki harbour attracts nearly two million visitors a year.
So immense was his contribution that he came to be known as the “Scottish samurai” - but it is easy to miss the site of his birth and upbringing.
The family home on Fraserburgh’s Commerce Street was destroyed during a Second World War bombing raid and has lain neglected for decades.
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Now plans have been unveiled aimed at transforming it into a Japanese-themed memorial garden which local leaders hope will draw visitors from far and wide as they bid to secure the Aberdeenshire town’s regeneration.
“We’re really hoping this will provide a tourism focus and that it will make the gap site into a real asset for the community and local businesses,” said Alison Simpson, community engagement officer at the Fraserburgh Conservation Area Regeneration Project.
“There’s a steady stream of Japanese coming to Fraserburgh, coming to visit the place of his birth, and finding an unloved and neglected site. We aim to change that.
“Visitors... are inclined to go to the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses and the Heritage Centre then carry on along the coast. We think the memorial garden will be enough of a distinctive attraction that people will stop in the town centre as well.”
Born in June 1838, Glover spent the first six years of his life in Fraserburgh, at that time a rapidly expanding fishing and trading port.
Upon leaving school in 1857, he took a job as a shipping clerk with the Jardine Matheson trading company, later joining its Far Eastern operation and accepting a posting to Shanghai.
There he sold opium to middlemen and traded in silks, tea and guns before relocating to Nagasaki as the old order disintegrated.
He was a key figure in the Mitsubishi conglomerate’s early growth, building links with Scottish shipyards and playing an instrumental role in bringing students to universities north of the Border.
Echoing his achievements, proposals for the Fraserburgh memorial envisage a courtyard garden which will double as a community and interpretation space offering information about Glover’s role in the creation of modern Japan.
A monument and pine tree inspired by his famous Nagasaki garden, which he named “Ipponmatsua” (or “Solitary Pine”), are also planned, while low, evergreen ground-cover will reference the “mossy mounds” characteristic of traditional Japanese horticulture.
The memorial, designed with the help of RankinFraser Landscape Architects, is one of a range of projects being taken forward as part of a £5.7 million investment in the new Fraserburgh Central Conservation Area over a five-year period to March 2021.
“The wider regeneration project is very significant because Fraserburgh, certainly over a long period, had become quite run down,” said Ms Simpson.
“What we still have of Glover is the place he knew as a child and there are a great many buildings in the town that were part of the place when he lived there.
“We are using modern conservation principles to make it quite clear where design is fresh and modern. We are not creating a pastiche of Victorian Fraserburgh.”
Proposals for another Glover landmark, the former family home on Bridge of Don’s Balgownie Road, have stalled because of the Covid-19 crisis.
It was previously reported that Aberdeen City Council had plans to carry out repair and improvement work.
Mitsubishi bought the property in 1996 and it was given to the GrampianJapan Trust before being converted into a museum.
However, it closed in 2012 and was taken over by the city council two years later.
A spokesman said yesterday that the council would “continue to look at options for a future and sustainable use of the House and how any development could be funded”.
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