History of Powis Gate, Aberdeen
An Instagram worthy picture? Think again…
October is Black History month and I wanted to re-share this historic gate and it’s background and the links back to the Caribbean slave trade. At the bottom of this post I have linked reading material that I recommend and some resources.
Through my studies (my guiding qualification on the North East Scotland)and through my own reading I wanted to I wanted to start with Powis Gate, in Aberdeen.
Located across from the historic University of Aberdeen’s King College is the fairytale-esque Powis Gate. This tower may look like it’s from a fairytale but it has a much more sinister history that I am not sure many people know about.
Powis gate marked the entrance into the Powis estate and is in the Old Aberdeen area of the city. In the 1800’s the estate was largely (82%) of it’s income came from agriculture and rents.
The gate was built in 1834 by an Aberdeen architect under John Leslie of Powis who succeeded his father and was the owner of the Powis country estate. The Leslie family has a strong historical connection to Aberdeen and two of the Leslie family members were Greek language lecturers at the university nearby.
The design of the gate stands out amongst the more traditional Scottish grey stonework, the tower is said to be inspired by a Turkish Islamic minaret.
During my research I couldn’t find a clear connection between this family in Aberdeen to the middle east. So to be that remains a mystery to why this building has such a unique style for the north east of Scotland.
The Leslie family coat of arms is marked on the top of the archway and was restored in 2007. The gold crescent glistens in the very elusive Aberdeen sunshine. Nowadays, however, the University uses the building as postgraduate offices and as a Muslim prayer room.
Links to the Slave Trade
What is not immediately clear is that the money used to build this gate was indeed linked to the Caribbean slave trade.
The Leslie family were plantation owners, mostly coffee and sugar estates based in Jamaica. Scotland had strong connections with Jamaica, with thirty percent of estate owners there being Scottish owned.
The family had a total of 1268 workers (slaves) before emancipation. When the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came in, it outlawed slavery in the UK and British Colonies from August 1st 1834. Under this act, a substantial pot of money came from the UK government in form of compensation for slave owners.
Did you know that the UK government only recent JUST finished paying off their debts for this in 2015. If you think about that, if you are a UK tax payer you most likely contributed to this financial agreement.
It was seen as a significant loss of earnings to estate owners and therefore they were compensated. The Leslie family received £7,000 towards their losses, which in today’s money works out at around £600k. The proceeds from this scheme was put towards building this fairytale looking gate in the heart of Old Aberdeen. I’m almost certain that is not something that they will mention in their guidebook of Aberdeen.
Scotland in particular had strong trade links and slave trade connections with the Caribbean, especially Jamaica and Antigua. Aberdeen itself and the surrounding Shire also has strong links back to the slave trade.
The University only recently erected a plaque on the wall nearby which states that this archway was created through earning from slavery.
I wanted to write something about this place as I’ve often seen it on instagram, having seen many aesthetic pictures of people posing in front of it and I wanted to draw attention to the history of the area. To be fair, the area around the university is beautiful and even more so on a crisp autumnal day the granite of Aberdeen does glisten.
Resources I can recommend on the Slave Trade and links to Scotland:
Book: Bought and Sold: Slavery, Scotland and Jamaica by Kate Phillips.
The book traces this shared story from its early beginnings in the 1700s to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and reflects on the meaning of those years for both nations today.
I’m sure you’ve heard the term over used these days of books that change your life, well this was one for me. Kate Phillips style of writing is direct and informative and laid bare the connections all of Scotland had to the slave trade.
Book: Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery by Miranda Kauffman.
This recently published book (2025) focuses on the women’s stories as the slave owners or plantation owners. The book follows the lives of 9 heiresses and tracing their wealth and money from it’s origins in the sugar plantations in the Caribbean to it’s legacies in Britain today.
Website: Black History Month Scotland
Website that details all the events across Scotland relating to Black History Month.
Walking Tour: Black History Scotland Tours
An Edinburgh based walking tour company that uncovers the little-known stories of Edinburgh's diverse African, African American, and Caribbean heritage dating back to the 16th century
Kat
