Original designs for Aberdeen Football Club’s Pittodrie Stadium have been unearthed.

The designs were found by the Aberdeen University Special Collections department when cataloguing the MacDonald maps and plans collection, which dates to the late 1800s.

© Aberdeen University Special Collections

It comes as work has begun on the new £50 million stadium at Kingsford, which will include a 20,000-seat stadium.

Although the new stadium will be capable of seating up to 20,000 fans, the original plans – which date back to 1899 – show engineering drawings for Pittodrie Park.

The designs were produced by Beattie & Macdonald, C.E., Surveyors and Architects, which had offices on Bridge Street in the city centre.

The Merkland Road venue first boasted a 1,000-capacity stand and was established on the site of a dunghill for police horses.

The first game was held against Dumbarton on September 2 1899.

In 1903 Pittodrie became the new home of Aberdeen Football Club, following the amalgamation of the previous club, Orion, and Victoria United.

It then joined the Scottish Second Division in 1904.

© Aberdeen University Special Collections

Paul Logie, museums and special collections archives assistant at Aberdeen University, said: “The MacDonald maps and plans collection is a wonderful resource for studying the development of the city and shire from the late 18th Century to the early 20th Century and includes many rare and unique maps by prominent north-east surveyors of the time.

“The collection, part of the university’s Special Collections, highlights the introduction of public housing, transport routes and water supply and drainage schemes and demonstrates how the north-east landscape and its villages and towns were shaped over time.”

The unique collection of maps and plans was transferred to the university’s Special Collections Centre in the Sir Duncan Rice Library in 2012.

It includes around 5,500 plans relating to both Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.

The earliest map dates back to 1746 with the latest, more recent, being drawn in 1955.

As it stands, today’s Pittodrie Stadium has come a long way from the plans drawn up in 1899.

It currently has a seating capacity of 20,961 – a sizeable difference from its original 1,000.

The most extensive development came in 1993 when the stand on the east side of the ground was demolished and the Richard Donald Stand constructed in its place.

Since then the ground has remained mostly unchanged.

A spokesman for Aberdeen Football Club said: “It’s great to see what the place looked like before Aberdeen Football Club took possession.

“That is something that will be of interest in the future.

“We will have a museum in the new stadium and we will be wanting to show Pittodrie as it looked before.”

The first phase of construction of the new stadium at Kingsford will include a training pavilion, groundsmen’s accommodation, three professional training pitches, two 3G pitches and two grass pitches, which will be shared between the club and Aberdeen Football Club Community Trust (AFCCT).

Earthworks have started which will allow the formal construction work to begin on the stadium in October.

It is expected that the facilities – valued at £10 million – will be completed by summer next year, with work beginning on the stadium itself after phase one has been finished.

All of the records have been processed online and can be viewed on the university’s website