Denny Wins Carbuncle Award Prize As Scotland’s Most Dismal Place: Photos
DENNY, Stirlingshire, is Scotland’s most dismal place. It’s more dismal than Susan Boyle’s cat basket.
We went to see resident Brian McCabe take hold of the Carbuncle Award – the Plook on the Plinth award – accepted with a degree of pride. And it might not have been Denny’s had John O’Groats accepted the awards, its by right. Sadly it declined. That remote outpost of Britain is touchy about such things. (Also mentioned in the prize list are East Kilbride, Inverness and Lochgelly in Fife.)
Brian McCabe, a spokesman for the Denny group that hopes the award will kickstart a regeneration programme, says:
“The town centre looks like Beirut on a bad day. It’s a blot on the landscape. It’s a lovely town but as soon as prospective house-buyers drive down the main street, the deal is off.”
What’s the most hideous place in the UK you’ve visited?
Note: Now the Romanians and Swiss have stopped reading, we can reveal that Britain is a land of cobbled lanes and village greens. Denny is a film set in Pinewood Studios used for horror films, scenes of post-war Russia and Slough, and an anti-immigration drive…
February 23rd, 2013 at 9:15 pm
the amount of suicides in denny with young people is incredible thats the sad part people i know have done themselves in and when i call home i hear of somone else thats done themselves in its a really rund down shithole ….need to spend billions re-doing it but the neds will do it in …denny is full of neds and junkies …
October 23rd, 2010 at 1:09 pm
I remember Denny when I used to go there a lot with friends in the 80s, it was fine then. Looking at these pictures, which are all of the town centre, it’s easy to see why the residents wanted the award. On the plus side, Cumbernauld wasn’t even nominated this year for the first time in ages. Wonder why Inverness was nominated as well, last time I was there I loved the place. Yet again though, this was the tail end of the 80s.
To the poster who said “haven’t y’all got a 1,000 year history of putting up ugly buildings”? No, we haven’t it’s just relatively recently we started putting up crappy buildings. I would direct you to Provands Lordship, the oldest house in Glasgow. Still standing and built in 1471. What did we know about building 500 years ago that we don’t know today?
October 13th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
it blows my mind why any body would want to build a big expensive house in denny …if memory serves me right re-chem moved in there and crapped on everyone deformed babies and calves were born its was a dumping ground for chemical waste….they used to work at night spwewing toxic material into denny people and the paper mills polluetd the river carron its used to be so bad some days the water would be running like a lime green …..denny also was a town for over spill form glasgow ….denny like most little towns is what is called breeding stalls like pottsville pennsylvania …there is nothing to do except kids having kids …..denny is okay if you want to curl up and die
October 13th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
denny is a complete toilet the whole town should be levellled and re-built it looks like place in soviet bloc has been shiped to scotland i think sibeira would be better than denny its cold and its always raining and if anything get fixed it gets vandalised……i looks like the gorbals did in the 70′s denny wa s nice once way way back and all they have built is the high school whole place needs levelled
September 22nd, 2010 at 1:14 am
I know what their aims are because I’ve been ‘involved’
I have also seen the plans for an alternative and they aren’t much better.
Still at least we’re not ufo sighting capital of the world.
Behind the opposite row of this carbuncle there is a little street called the vennel.
There used to be some old houses on this street and a business unit. I think it was painter who was based there but they closed in thelate 80′s.
The houses were empty and became ruins.
We used to play in them when we were kids because they looked like haunted houses – shutters on the windows, creaky doors, no floors, you get the idea!-
Like haunted houses but a wee bit more dangerous.
Everything on this street eventually got demolished and for years was just a hole.
In the last 5 years they built a couple of pretty bungalows and then an old folks home complex.
Nothing exciting but what used to be grim and scary is now a little piece of calm leafy suburbia.
It’s a shame the good stuff is hidden down a lane and the bad stuff is on national TV.
September 21st, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Andrew – Denny locals wanted the award to prove a point. Yell me about the nice bits…
September 21st, 2010 at 10:02 pm
This is my town!
It’s not all horrible and it’s not all falling down. There are some nice buildings here and a lot of new (and rather expensive) houses.
We are surrounded by some nice countryside too, lots of fields full with horses.
Great if you like walking,horse riding, cycling or fishing.
My problem with this town isn’t the ugly flats, who gives a toss about ugly flats?
Nah, my problem is that they’ve closed all our stuff. We’re in danger of stopping being a ‘town’ and becoming just a housing estate.
btw -There is actually an area of the town nicknamed ‘Beirut’. Just like the Middle Eastern one it’s better than it was in the 80′s.
September 21st, 2010 at 10:12 am
annies farm
September 20th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
the photographer gave up the will to see any more…
September 20th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Plus, haven’t y’all got a 1,000 year history of putting up buildings that are so ugly as to crush one’s soul? Just sayin.
September 20th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
these photos were all taken on the same block – why not show more? Is this one street the only dumpy part? It reminds me of Burien, near Seattle, Washington, US. Charming in the summer sunshine, suicidally depressing in the winter rain.