St Andrews Bandstand - David Strachan

The restoration of the St Andrews Bandstand was the subject of a talk by David Strachan.
David was brought up in St Andrews and returned to the town after retiring from a career in teaching.
The bandstand was built in 1905 by ornamental ironwork specialist McFarlane & Co, Glasgow.
David, who is chair of St Andrews Preservation Trust, showed various old pictures from the Cowie collection of the bandstand.
Over the years and with a lack of regular maintenance the bandstand at Bow Butts fell into disrepair.
David took charge of raising money for the restoration project in 2019 and with cash  from the common good fund and other sources, work started two years ago. The initial cost was to be around £55,000 but with Covid lockdown, spiralling material costs and discovering that much more renovation work was required than was first thought, the final bill came in at just over £140,000.
David outlined that the bandstand’s original steel beams had become badly rusted and wooden beams had become rotten. The bandstand’s ornamental steel decorations had to be replaced.
The Gloucestershire company doing the work had taken over the McFarlane name and the owner Andrew Elliott worked painstakingly at restoring the bandstand to its former glory with the shot blasted main pillars and recast ironwork finished off with five coats of paint, similar to that used on the Forth Bridge.
The work was completed and handed over only last week and an opening ceremony will coincide with the first concert of the summer season on Sunday, July 2nd.
David was thanked for his most interesting and detailed talk by Kyffin Roberts.