Can I help Daniel find his Grandparents? [GEO DETECTIVE #27]

[@feasible]

Great video as always. One random request/suggestion: you always mention that you don't reverse google image search the original image because it would be too easy. I think it'd be interesting if, after you find the location, you try reverse image searching just to see if it would have come up right away or not.

[@GuestDGaming]

Ooh, I like this!

[@taukakao]

I tried it for this image and it actually does come up if you give it the correct snippet of the image.

[@elin_]

Yes! It can also work as a confirmation in the sessions where he's not a 100% certain if he's right.

[@mikeyforrester6887]

He did it on the "Your litter will kill you" one and it worked

[@yuckz0ne]

Also trying to find out what the signs actually said

[@stine7144]

Tom is gonna get personalized adds for scottish hotels for years to come after this.

[@SW-fh7he]

There are worse things

[@spjewkes]

Yeah. Mainly Scottish lesbian hotels 😂

[@remybuitenhuis2433]

@@spjewkes 😂😂

[@andrewdunbar828]

and anonymous subtracts

[@Nooticus]

lol

[@mrcool7140]

The fact that it was only recently demolished somehow makes it even more sad.

[@krisrutherford3975]

It was on your first search at 5:39 🤣

[@chudina1]

classic

[@dan_gosling]

Great spot!

[@NandiCollector]

*At the beginning we all thought it was a 3 story hotel, not 4. That's why he didn't bothered to click it.*

[@krisrutherford3975]

I live in Ayr, 5 minutes from the former station hotel. As a longtime Geowizard follower, this was a great watch 😀

[@snoopymccloud1875]

@@krisrutherford3975 Any rumors on the fire?!

[@memeworld7800]

When Daniel sent this case in the hotel was STILL there. It took Tom almost 2 years to answer him and in that time it burnt down and was demolished.

[@crowpotking1100]

maybe the sender found it first then burnt it down 🤣

[@louibeans]

Even though that's accurate, you can't look into the future. Tom couldn't have known this was a time-sensitive case.

[@worcestermark]

@@crowpotking1100 He had to, or the search would have been too easy.

[@mftmss7086]

​@@louibeansactually he had known. He's just evil

[@louibeans]

@@mftmss7086 Yes that's the most likely scenario for sure 🤣 And you know this because you are friends with this evil person and talked to him about his evil plans?

[@Wingspan_5]

“An Hotel” must be owned by Jeremy Clarkson.

[@gauravsane]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@pieter2198]

Haha nice one

[@kristjanveski]

lol, beat me to it!

[@zaitsevvadym]

You've just stole my comment... That I was a bit late to write

[@kiimawittu_]

I also thought of that😂

[@tokimeki8746]

14:34 "guys, get your bunsen burners out" you had me rolling

[@skasteve6528]

Never watch one of these before, but I'm glad I did. As soon as I saw that photo, I thought to myself, 'That's a railway hotel'. It looks like it was built somewhere between the mid to late 19th century. The only reason for building a hotel of that size, is that something changed that would bring people to the town or city. In nearly all cases, that would be the arrival of the railway. When the various railway companies built their stations, in any town that would warrant it, they'd build a hotel next to the station. They wanted potential customers to know that this was the hotel next to the railway station, so they'd almost invariably call it either 'Station Hotel', 'Railway Hotel' or name it after the railway company itself. Of course, as there were a lot of them built, I don't know that this would make your search any easier.

[@chrishainey]

I immediately thought Ayr as it looks like the old Station Hotel there

[@dianacourt377]

Good logic

[@CaraiCuebiyar]

AI search segment was gold 😂

[@zengrath]

And they say it'll take over the world.. hah. It seems to fail to do a lot of simple tasks. Honestly AI today still have no real opinion, or logic, it just follows trained data with added randomness added to it. It literally will just make things up to try to answer you.

[@Ash_18037]

Comedy gold

[@Scotschie]

I tried chatgpt, it gave like 6 answers then refused and said it cannot be done to list more lmao

[@maciejbala477]

I already commented it, elsewhere, but I'm an AI enthusiast, use it a lot, and I know full well that this kind of task is something it is particularly bad at. So I'm not surprised. It's similar to famously difficult problems for language models which are really easy for humans (e.g. how many 'r' letters is there in the word 'strawberry'). If you want it to do things with numbers/letters, you're gonna have a very hard time. Just goes to show how different it is from humans, because it emulates thinking with basically predicting based on probability.

[@zengrath]

@@maciejbala477 Yep, funny when i said same thing youtube deleted my comment or the youtube creator.

[@pitbullhab]

5:38 ? Yes, it was on the 1st search, Station Hotel, Ayr, 2nd from left.

[@tokimeki8746]

I actually paused the video to have a closer look at that one, but then I dismissed it lol

[@woolenfeet]

I clocked that too.

[@olenilsen4660]

SPOILER!!!

[@jh-ys5zw]

@@olenilsen4660 dont read comments before watching the video, common sense

[@LiveTheDash]

quite honestly my fave YT series

[@cornishcactus]

I spent ages looking for the B115 on the sign behind his grandfathers head feeling very smug with myself for seeing the easy clue Tom missed, then realised it said BUS

[@shiina29]

😂

[@olenilsen4660]

LOL! ;D I think we´ve all been there!

[@gabbswolfe509]

You can see the end of a T after land.... scotland 😂😂😂😂. Wernt hard 😂

[@MasterTiccu]

​@@gabbswolfe509 What are you on about?

[@gabbswolfe509]

Perfectly right mate/ I meant Before land/and its a R not a T.. Better slow down on the weed 😂😂😂

[@PeterMoore66]

@GeoWizard Tom - if you use the imagery from Oct 2015, you can get the camera on the EXACT spot the photo was taken.

[@IsabelJones69]

@PeterMoore66 I wanted to find the place, but I can't get the marker to go to 0ctober 2015.

[@explorernate]

@@IsabelJones69 maps.app.goo.gl/X7LHHZkSACQfvcwj8

[@loucam08]

@@IsabelJones69 maps.app.goo.gl/CDUw3ratGLssWQ2PA exact spot

[@MrHenkkkie]

@@IsabelJones69 You first have to move into the alleyway

[@FarmerMarrow]

And only 2 Gordons thus reducing the Gordon fuzz 👍

[@alderdash2469]

I loved this building so much, it was criminal what happened to it. First an out of town developer bought it and did nothing with it, so over years the building started to deteriorate and rot until it had to be covered in protective scaffolding, and then a few years ago a couple of teens snuck inside and set it on fire. It was a huge blaze that gutted the hotel, and it's now mostly destroyed. It's a terrible shame. Edit: now realised that is included at the end of the video. The fire was only last year?! It felt longer than that...

[@Anvekeen]

People love to destroy nice things. Such a shame.

[@Nooticus]

As a monthly reader of 'The Railway Magazine' I have been reading updates on this Ayr Station Hotel regularly for the past year or two because for 6 - 9 months (if I remember correctly), the railway line through Ayr was completely closed due to the building being unsafe after the fire, and them not being able to get in contact with the Malaysian man who owned the property, and all the legal proceedings surrounding that. It was a HUGE and well-known saga among UK railway nerds, but I still didn't recognise it here lol

[@somevids4187]

@@Nooticus selling historic landmarks to foreigners who don't take care of the buildings should be illegal. But everything is for sale these days...

[@AbiSaysThings]

Disgusting that our public transport services are allowed to fall to the whims of random foreign millionaires who don't have a care in the world. The public good should have taken precedence.

[@Nooticus]

@ youre just talking literally without knowing anything youre saying 😂 1. Since 2020 the railways have been nationalised 2. The foreign companies operated the TRAIN SERVICE. The infrastructure, stations, surrounding land etc. has ALWAYS been owned by network rail which is owned by the government. If network rail decides to sell a property like this, located on network rail land, to a Malaysian millionaire then what’s wrong with that? Its quite literally funding infrastructure improvements through a government owned company. Please stop talking if you dont know what youre saying xx

[@iamjeramy]

Hey Tom, wanted to let you know that Great Aunt's painting was from Pont Neuf and was surprisingly accurate! Hope to see you update your spreadsheet or perhaps cover it in a video! Cheers!

[@rumblehat4357]

Your channel has me going back and looking at old picture locations I would find that I used to recreate shots of old manhattan. I just found the files. I used to work in Manhattan and would travel around to find the locations. I would try to take the pictures from the exact same angle. Fun times back in the 2000’s. I love old pictures and always wonder “what else did that person do that day?”

[@Emperor-e2x]

As a resident of the town I managed to recognise it straight away, very cool to see it on the channel.

[@Puffball-ll1ly]

Ah nah you spoilt it 😂

[@Emperor-e2x]

@@Puffball-ll1ly My bad lol, got too excited to see it featured 😆

[@Emperor-e2x]

@@Puffball-ll1ly Took the location out of the comment so hopefully it doesn't get spoiled for anyone else 🤣

[@danpreston2222]

reading the comments before watching and not expecting spoilers is a rookie mistake!

[@lanspectre3417]

I'm not from there but have been a handful of times over my life and I just immediately recognised it then went on Google maps to find the exact spot. I'm also surprised with the recent history of the building that it didn't come up in his searches quicker

[@Bismarck-S]

This is unironically some of the best content KZbin has to offer. It's so unique and Tom is such an entertaining person, combined with the exitement of trying to reach the answer of the mysterious picture.

[@Nooticus]

facts

[@imstuman]

Ah yes, the suspicious fire that clears the way for developers.

[@Ryuisnod]

Not likely as it's the train station and has cost millions to manage pre and post fire.

[@felixdombek6052]

"I'll look up the term for this roof but first some low-hanging fruit 😏" -- scours through hundreds of names 😵

[@nkmslr]

Geo detectives are super entertaining man. It's your best series apart from straight line missions. Quality content, never stop doing these!

[@celtlen]

I love how Tom pronounces Scottish towns with all the familiarity he has for US states. Oban is the Oregon of Scotland.

[@Uncivilcivilservice]

Glenrothes was also painful gold haha

[@explorernate]

"er vine"

[@philroberts7238]

And Lothian with an unvoiced 'th'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's more like 'clothe' than 'cloth', isn't it?

[@qtipextra]

Oh, ray gun?

[@anphorus]

​@@Uncivilcivilservice To be fair, I've never heard someone who wasn't Scottish get it right on their own.

[@arghjayem]

26:20 sure the photo doesn’t show the archway, but that is the right spot. It’s a very tall archway where it starts based on the contemporary street view, and remember people are taller than they were 70 years ago. The archway in the old photo is probably just out of shot! 🤷

[@jasonweir1989]

*Spoiler warning * I knew it was Ayr station straight away, I used to have to get the train there every day for work and college when I lived in Troon. Sadly the town has suffered like many from the death of high streets. We used to get into Club de Mar when we weren't old enough to be in clubs, we also used to sneak into the odeon cinema across the road from where this picture was taken, one of us would buy a ticket and open the fire escape door to let the rest of us in. Alot of good times in the town with the same people I call friends today.

[@chinmay8954]

sounds like a good time mate. thanks for sharing, cheers!

[@olenilsen4660]

Spoiler alert, dude!

[@aw02pye]

I believe thats where it got the nickname Club de creche 😂😂.

[@jasonweir1989]

@olenilsen4660 my bad , never even thought. Fixed it

[@jasonweir1989]

@aw02pye we used to call it that aswell or Club Too Far was another one 😃

[@rupanjan]

Shame that the hotel is gone now, Daniel missed his chance to properly reenact that photo

[@brycedunlap]

"It was s'posed to be so easy..." A great quote from another great lad from Birmingham, Mike Skinner of The Streets.

[@grapesodatravels]

The bus stop is just visible over 'grandad's' head! Still in the same place after all this time!

[@olenilsen4660]

That´s the most compelling feature of the entire UK, but maybe especially Scotland, to me. Tradition is really something you don´t want to kid around with! They even have those ancient wash basins with hot and cold water on either side, so you can properly scold your hands before you cryogenically freeze them.

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

@@olenilsen4660 And then open the two doors swinging inwards to the pub toilet with sticky door handles?

[@Sympanet]

Here so early I don’t even know if he was recording yet

[@Seapatico]

The idea of there being a Lesbian Hotel in Scotland in the 1940s is amazing

[@Jacob-ns8rc]

It would of been demonic.

[@LeafHuntress]

@@Jacob-ns8rc Your grammar is demonic.

[@gordonj498]

I laughed out loud at the suggestion that there would be a hotel in Scotland in the 1940s or 50s with a massive sign on the roof reading Lesbian Hotel. 🤣

[@kchastain3]

“Lesbian Hotel” 😂

[@ShhhhhNow]

Unclear why he didn't google ...

[@footiefishy1]

Ombudsman Hotel was a banker

[@tomgidden]

@@ShhhhhNow Editing, I'm sure. "TWO HOURS LATER (AFTER A BREAK)"

[@ShhhhhNow]

@@tomgidden 🤣

[@41-Haiku]

@@tomgidden lol

[@chrismixel]

That editing with the music while you looked up the "an"s, and then you cut to yourself saying Ombusdman, very very good and made me laugh out loud. Great job!

[@LA6NPA]

27:36 The blue door/shopfront behind the bus stop: Bank of Scotland logo literally carved in stone above the door! ☺

[@thexbigxgreen]

Hey Tom, in case you didn't know, you can use asterisks to search for words of a given length with whichever characters included

[@Taliesin6]

that has never worked for me.

[@JayanthRajakumar]

Yeah a lot of the search tricks from the old days don't work anymore

[@darcytamer6533]

I love how that archway wall is still used as advertising space and the bus stop that you can see the sign for above his grandad's head is still a bus stop. Also when the penny drops, that first image of the search in B&W you can see the smaller roof on the very right of the image too, got there in the end. As a student architect seeing so many of these beautiful buildings with so much history be destroyed by neglect is a real dagger to the heart, but thanks for showing and sharing the sentiment towards these architectures.

[@timothy8009]

I was playing along and found the Ayr Station Hotel really early, but dismissed it as it was 4 stories. Doubted you when you started zeroing in on it, but I was wrong. You really are the GOAT 🐐

[@garydripps4844]

Got this one 2 seconds in. Grew up in Girvan and travelled to Ayr regularly. Loving the videos but watching this one when I knew the answer was frustrating. Keep them coming

[@viche1]

The paraffin would most likely be used to heat mobile heaters. We used to use them when I was a student in the early eighties - I can still remember the smell...

[@reggiedixon2]

I will always associate pink paraffin with a "Tliiey Lamp"we had when we built our own house when I was a kid, this was before LED lights and working in the dark with no electricity supply meant this was the only reliable light to work with.

[@rainbowkeykaraoke]

paraffin is an older and British word for what we usually call kerosene today. A thicker liquid petroleum product used in lamps and heaters.

[@reggiedixon2]

@@rainbowkeykaraoke It's still paraffin for anyone I speak to (should the subject come up which admittedly it is not an everyday conversation)

[@Blutzen]

@@reggiedixon2 Funny, as an American the only "paraffin" I know is paraffin wax, which is what most candles are made of these days.

[@olenilsen4660]

Mobile? In Norway, people used to have these things permanently installed like any old fireplace. The tanks was usually buried, or they could be set outside in barrels of 2-600 litres.

[@pooleyjnr]

As soon as I saw the picture I was shocked that my old home town and the infamous station hotel would be in geowizard. It's probably the same for every other person who has lived in or close to previous searches, feeling smug that you got the location in the first 10 seconds🤣 I was home on a family visit and having dinner in one of the restaurants close by when the two young kids set the station ablaze. I had to run out half way through my meal to move my car as it was just across the road in the cinema car park just in case the fire spread or my car was blocked in by the emergency services.

[@weemanjuanjo]

You got there in the end, Tom! I reckon the archway is right. If you look on Streetview, you can see what was clearly once a bank building (latterly a William Hill, now vacant) just a couple doors down from the archway. That tallies with the Bank of Scotland sign seen in the c1960 (stripey traffic lights give the decade away) view. Great to see Lost Edinburgh featured, albeit in a small way, on one of my favourite KZbin channels.

[@RustyPetterson]

If you zoom in on Street View you can still see the Bank of Scotland logo etched in the silver granite above the door! (Looks like a wee Scotland flag.)

[@assassinpredator1]

My favourite part of GeoDetective is watching Tom miss the answer in a Google search he didn't check properly 37 times before he gets the answer

[@stumccabe]

The correct indefinite article for the word "hotel" was, and still is by many, considered to be "an" rather than "a". When I was at school in the 1960s we were taught to say and write "an hotel". I believe both are considered correct today.

[@ThelolipopCreeper]

Sounds fr*nch to me

[@larryfoulke1596]

There a word in your comment that get highlighted with blue color ,the one that like in TikTok The "indefinite articles" one

[@nate9065]

I feel like it depends on how you pronounce hotel, if you say it with a soft enough h then an hotel would be better

[@ubertoaster99]

Yes, this comes up in crosswords a lot (old recycled clues). Still not met anyone who pronounces 'hotel' as a posh 'otel' (which would make the 'an' make sense) though.

[@maciejbala477]

@@nate9065 well, yeah, it'd make sense if the h is silent as in honest

[@Ecovictorian]

I would love to see an AI special episode about how the AI ​​deals with something like this. Just see the AI ​​fail completely. AI is great, if you search for a list of cities in country XY, you even get cities that don't exist. That makes everything even more fun

[@lindakrukowski1128]

Spoiler alert: I’m so excited! I found it within three minutes with the key words Scotland, Hotel and mansard roof! Then I just had to find which street they were on.

[@Delicioushashbrowns]

I took the long route 🤣 first i started with the Aladdin Pink stuff, assuming it was Scottish (it's not) and that maybe the shop was their first (it wasn't). Then I looked up older hotels, got sidetracked by the Highland hotel 'cause it looked similar. That took me to looking for railway hotels and finally ended up at the Ayr Station Hotel. There was a slight misdirection because it burned down (so, so sad) but overall I spent maybe 15 minutes.

[@annemarieanderson4824]

I was mentally shouting MANSARD ROOF for the first ten minutes

[@mattc3581]

@@annemarieanderson4824 I wandered down to Carlisle and found a number of rooves like this, was then checking cities in Western Scotland and streetviewed right through the spot. If it was still there I'd have found it in about 5 minutes :(

[@Heligany]

@@mattc3581 If you use the w key you can force streetview to go back in time and show you the images of the hotel before the fire- really sad to see how great it looked.

[@najtrows]

haha you see it in the first pic when you searched for station hotel 1950. the sign and that roof bit :D Always fun to watch these

[@joelhoeve]

Actually laughed out loud when you started counting Gordons at 26:23

[@ninzabey]

I started looking as soon as you announced the task. I decided to focus on the building and quickly found it. “ON” before “HOTEL” told me that this was probably a hotel near the railway statiON. In short, at the 10th minute of the video, I was already in Ayr. But it was more difficult to find the exact point, since the building was destroyed earlier this year

[@scottt6407]

The moment I seen the photo I recognised where it was. I'm just up the road a bit in Irvine. Ayr has changed very little, apart from the hotel burning down. This is also the spot where the buses took you to Butlins. Well done though.

[@SuperMuirio31]

Killed me a bit when he pronounced Irvine as “er vine”, but as a fellow Irvine resident, I also clicked where it was pretty quickly thanks to an ex from Ayr. Still fun seeing him figure it out though!

[@TexDrinkwater]

I was screaming, "It's an 'O'!" up until the time you figured it out. 🤣 Brilliant work finding it!

[@dominicshayler5323]

'Four Gordons' is a perfect name for any future music projects Tom!

[@Milvea10]

Or a new weatherspoon

[@ccc38cc]

Man this was the most frustrating video of the serie I watched. From the begning I had the "...on" in mind. You even typed "ayr station hotel architecture" and it got me so mad I had to look myslef "station hotel scotland 50s" and it was the first link. It got me so frustrated. Of course watching the video is not the same as doing it from a single picture. You got it, good job as always, gg man

[@TheIaindavidson]

As a resident of the village Cardenden, I cheered at it being up on the screen for a minute.

[@Eddyspeeder]

Had been craving for a Geo Detective. Thank you so much!

[@bradpoole3943]

Just watched Threads, (if you know, you know)… this is exactly what I need right now. Thanks Tom.

[@henry_cameron]

I had an english teacher show this film right before term break. nightmares i tell you

[@werdlederdle]

We had to watch it at school too.

[@abraxocleaner3345]

I hate people who say "if you know, you know". Its so smug and arrogant

[@bradpoole3943]

@@abraxocleaner3345 bro threads is about nuclear war - your name is abraxo cleaner which implies you are a fallout fan - me too! Watch threads and then you’ll understand. It’s a depressing movie so I’m not gonna go out and say watch it! Everyone has access to Google so a quick search of threads will also mean you know- and watching it you’ll not just know, you’ll understand. Don’t be so hateful. 👌

[@BarnaBrit]

@@abraxocleaner3345 More smug and arrogant than saying you hate people for using an innocuous term? It's not like you can't find out for yourself what they're talking about.

[@lisajohnson1528]

I love these videos the most than anything else you do thanks for posting!

[@mytube001]

The wall isn't too high. The highest visible point in the old picture is below the top of the straight section of the archway. There are five stones of equal height counting from the ground up, and then a sixth that is a bit taller, and a seventh that is the same height as the bottom five, and on top of that an eighth that is even shorter, which is the last before the arch begins. The top of the visible wall in the old picture ends at the eighth stone, as far as I can tell.

[@jaswatchingstuff]

This was literal torture to watch. I found the the hotel myself in under 5 minutes, and as noted by others it came up in the Google search at 5:38. Then I was in agony watching the intense focus on 'an hotel' and the various tangents. Then relieved when the right hotel appeared on screen, but then wanted to throw stuff at the TV when it was dismissed. Agony, but entertaining all the same. Cheers Tom.

[@mach0elf]

Most towns had a 'station hotel', more English people visited Ayr than any other resort, so those should be the first places to look. The standard pronunciation of 'hotel' was with a silent 'h' up to the 1930s books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=an+hotel%2Ca+hotel&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en-GB&smoothing=3

[@Marcel-W3]

That's not an A, it's an O..... finally, he got there.

[@kkelly2799]

i couldn't believe how he was so convinced it was an A. "What other letter could it be?" .... tom tom tom .... smh

[@midiwall]

... and with the 'O' in 'HOTEL' _right there_ for comparison. I think he was off his game... 3 hours of breaks, and a number of face-swipes!

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

The angle would have been wrong for an A.

[@ingemarolson3240]

Yeah. I looked at it, said to myself "...ON HOTEL". Then Tom says "AN", and I'm like ... whaaa? (This could have been a 10 minute video.)

[@Alwuwa]

I knew I recognised it. I've been in that Totally Wicked when we went to Ayr in 2018, and had to turn around in that arch way as I couldn't find parking. God that was a blast! Great work!

[@renerpho]

Never bothered to google "Sutherland Brothers Ltd." Established in 1892, and still around today. I'm sure Tom has come across their SB logo.

[@7rebor]

Sutherland brothers also came up in one of his searches for the butchers and bakers, I thought it was a good shout after that, but he didn't spot it. Not that it would've made it any easier!

[@renerpho]

@@7rebor I agree, it probably wouldn't have helped to solve it, but he would have learned that the add was for a company that operated all over Scotland. He may have correctly concluded that this makes the add worthless when it comes to pinning down the place.

[@ShhhhhNow]

Yesssss. Haven't watched this yet and can't wait to set aside the time to do so!

[@Mackerdaymia]

Not gonna lie, my brain instantly filled it in as "Station Hotel" as soon as I saw the image 😅

[@adamofnotrades]

Love this series. Click on these and watch every time.

[@mardyjane7664]

When he finally realised it was -on, not -an 🎉💪😀

[@MoonDoggie]

Oh my god that was mind blowing to see that train station/hotel come up - i grew up there and recognised it right away!! I haven't been back in years but sad to hear the station/hotel is gone (sounds like most of the town centre is abandoned now too) - so many great memories heading out on daytrips to glasgow from that station in the 2000's , such a dope place to have grown up!

[@mrt4483]

The “O ban hotel” 😅 you make our places sound posher

[@deslomator]

Found it, the august 2024 Street View was harrowing. Now to watch the video, probably the series I look forward to watching the most, thank you for this.

[@bcgrote]

Gothic Revival mansard roof with widow's walk.

[@kermdeezy5330]

Tom should just read an introductory architecture book and it will serve him for years to come

[@whiderboss]

roof cresting

[@AndyKay]

Finally one I recognised, and then found in the end through one of my photos - nice to see that on here! 😊

[@findmeinthefuture.]

Haven't watched the full video yet, but FYI, you can use an asterisk as a wildcard character in a google search. So if you search for "*an hotel," the * represents any sequence of characters and you'll get hotels that end with "an." A question mark symbol is the same thing but for just one character (so if you see a sign that's missing a letter for some reason, you could use a ? for the missing character). EDIT: This isn't going to help much if you mistake ON for AN, of course. But it's worth a try and might pay off one of these days.

[@olenilsen4660]

haxxor trick!

[@louibeans]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. thank you, I didn't know that!

[@padmeamidala4883]

The * doesn’t work anymore for google searches🤦🏽‍♀️

[@louibeans]

@@padmeamidala4883 Aw there goes my excitement

[@ChokyoDK]

One of the best series on YT

[@noe9250]

I played along here and got the exact location in 16 minutes, once I'd cracked the idea of a "station hotel" it wasn't long

[@StuartDootson]

My dad was born and bred in Prestwick, just near Ayr, so we often went there on holiday (in the 70s)… and my first thought on seeing the photo was that the architecture was reminiscent of Ayr… I thought maybe not, as it’s not really one of the more touristy destinations, but there you go!

[@davidpreston9909]

Got to say I had it in a couple of minutes. Thought 'That looks like railway architecture.' (Too much of a peasant to think 'Renaissance'.) Ooh, wonder if it's 'Station Hotel'? Googled 'station hotel Scotland' and there it was.

[@r9eaper]

I'm really loving these Geo Detective vids! Great stuff as always! 👍Ta'ra abit bab, catch ya in the next vid! 👋

[@PhatInAHat]

I see a Mansard Roof through the trees, I see a salty message written in the eaves.

[@chris25861]

The ground beneath my feet

[@StuartGilbert]

The only reason I knew what a Mansard Roof was before Tom's videos. :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/gJ3Kf3mtpKajm8U

[@jamesboswell9324]

I must confess that I thought you were being an absolute numpty when you didn't immediately think of Caledonian Hotel, but then in the end, and as it turned out, I was suffering with precisely the same tunnel vision as you. That was some excellent detecting Tom.

[@dans3626]

Screaming Scottish town names at Tom as he pronounces them horrendously 🤣

[@TheGlassman63]

Absolutely incredible work, thanks for your efforts. Please do more of these Geo detective vids, so engaging and interesting to watch.

[@falconfotographic]

Oh-Bahn 😮 my lugs!

[@jayktee96]

I found that really interesting, I can confirm that the building on the left at 27.37 is def. a closed down Bank of Scotland branch, they almost always looked the same with granite ? panels, there is even a section where an old night safe has been removed, However you don't need this a proof you hit the nail on the head anyway, well done!!

[@GuanoLad]

The collective noun for Gordons is an Allotment.

[@balthasar1stern889]

10:56 "we've sank" had me nearly spitting out my milk, haha! And with that dead serious face as well.

[@sarahdebeau2481]

Pink paraffin was used in floor standing paraffin heaters in homes.

[@Nooticus]

Really great Geo Detective as always. Interestingly enough, as a monthly reader of 'The Railway Magazine' I have been reading updates on this Ayr Station Hotel regularly for the past year or two because for 6 - 9 months (if I remember correctly), the railway line through Ayr was completely closed due to the building being unsafe after the fire, and them not being able to get in contact with the Malaysian man who owned the property, and all the legal proceedings surrounding that. It was a HUGE and well-known saga among UK railway nerds, but I still didn't recognise it here lol

[@J4NTO]

I've never been there but knew the name of the hotel immediately, just because its an incredibly common name for hotels in the UK and there's no chance that was an A not an O!

[@GJPhotographic]

Thanks for another engrossing video. Another suggestion, when looking for images of old buildings on Google images, click on Tools then Color then select Black and White. This will give you photos of how the buildings looked back in the day and cuts out a lot of the modern newer buildings.

[@niallscottanimation]

I've never screamed as much at the screen about the 'o', the archway and the fact the first result of the correct image show clearly showed the right turret but then again theres absolutely no way I wouldnt do the same thing in the hot seat

[@gcrosheffielduk]

I love GeoDetective. I play along while the video plays (no luck yet) 🤣. It’s been too long since the last one. Great video 👍👍👍

[@viktorgames2737]

OMG IT'S HERE!!

[@Rocco-kr7mr]

nope

[@frogandspanner]

_Pink Paraffin_ was a competitor to _Esso Blue_ in the '50s/60s. Domestic paraffin heaters were quite common then. It was typically sold at chemists, hardware shops, and petrol stations. It is interesting to see that the shop was at one time a motor parts place.

[@XxMrDudexX]

15:57 You're crossing Cornwall? 🕵

[@finn7453]

I decided to take part and failed to find it. Shocker to realise it’s the hotel I could see out the window of my old home 😆

[@hobbies2seriously]

Tom would have 8,717 unread emails

[@darrenbillups1322]

Love these videos. Please keep them coming

[@subduedATTITUDE]

Anyone know how I submit a photograph for this series? Have one of my Granddad in the middle of the English countryside where I’d love to find.

[@olenilsen4660]

You don´t. He´s got enough for a long time to come. If he gets through them all, he will announce another round, I guess. Now, there´s a lot of us wannabes that might like to give it a try! It would be awesome if someone made a website for this, something like Geoguessr or Timeguessr, where people could submit their guesses, and you as the owner could choose between those. But if you do want to reach out to him, look through his channel for a way.... Just know that he´s a pretty busy man, so don´t expect an answer right away.

[@GLOKD]

What a well groomed and well dressed couple. I love these fascinating windows into our social histories.

[@lhesitante]

The word "hotel" is of french origin, and so the 'h' originally wasn't pronounced (neither in French or (posh) English), so the "an hotel" search gives a lot of false friends.

[@CraigLXX]

Excited to say I got it from the thumbnail alone, although maybe not surprising as I was brought up a couple of miles away. Good to see the home town on Geowizard!

[@motelghost477]

21:59 The moment I saw that hotel sign I was thinking "What the hell is Tom on about, that's clearly an O." You also miscounted the number of floors, you said the hotel in the photo only had three floors but it had four. Not quite on yer game today.

[@stonefaction]

Yeah, could not see an A either. Straight away I read it as an O.

[@jockepett1]

Well done sir! Again. It shows that pesistance and stuborness pays back. Keep up the good work, Cheers!