Old Aberdeen

Old Aberdeen Scots: Auld Aiberdeen
Aberdeenshire
College Bounds, the old High Street of Old Aberdeen
Location
Grid reference:	NJ939082
Location:	57°9’53"N, 2°6’9"W
Data
Post town:	Aberdeen
Postcode:	AB24
Dialling code:	01224
Local Government
Council:	Aberdeen
Parliamentary constituency:	Aberdeen North
Website:	oldaberdeen.org.uk

Old Aberdeen stands to the north of the city centre of Aberdeen, along the south bank of the River Don in Aberdeenshire as it reaches the sea, and it is from this position that the city received its name, meaning "Mouth of the Don".

This was the original city, but supplanted in that role in the Middle Ages by New Aberdeen, which became the city known today, the two being quite distinct towns a mile apart separated by fields, until the townscape grew between them in modern time. Nevertheless, it is in Old Aberdeen that the city's former cathedral stands, now the High Kirk of Aberdeen, and the buildings of the University of Aberdeen.

Old Aberdeen was for several centuries a separate burgh. It was erected into a burgh of barony on 26 December 1489 by King James IV and its independence of the city ended only in 1891. The town's motto is "concordia res parvae crescunt" ("through harmony, small things increase").

Location

King's College, High Street, Old Aberdeen

Powis Gates

To the north of Aberdeen city centre, Old Aberdeen was for a long time fairly isolated at the edge of the city, being followed to the north by the River Don, Seaton Park and the small Brig o' Balgownie hamlet. Since the 1960s, and the North Sea oil boom of the 1970s, however, housing development has surrounded the area, in particular with the nearby Tillydrone development.

History

The settlement known to the Romans as Devanna may have been at a site near Old Aberdeen, and in a later age the Norse the Heimskringla Saga referred to a town named Apardion, which is likely to be Old Aberdeen.

Old Aberdeen was an important political, ecclesiastical and cultural center since the Late Middle Ages, as the seat of the Bishop of Aberdeen.

Local tradition holds that St Machar founded Old Aberdeen’s first church during the 6th century, overlooking the Don. King David I established a new Bishopric at Old Aberdeen in 1125/30. St Machar’s Cathedral dates from at least 1370 but probably replaced a building of around 1160. Canons resided in the Chanonry.

On 26 December 1489, King James IV established Old Aberdeen as a Burgh of Barony, and granted it the right to hold a market. In 1495, William Elphinstone established a college dedicated to 'St Mary in the Nativity', which became known as King’s College and is now part of the University.

In the 1630s the Covenanters challenged the Doctors of Aberdeen by holding a meeting in Muchalls Castle and responding to certain letters issued by the doctors, thus setting the stage for the first battle of the Bishops' Wars, when William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal and the Marquess of Montrose led a Covenanter army of 9,000 men over the Causey Mounth to attack forces at the Bridge of Dee, effectively gaining control of Old Aberdeen.

The town ceased to be a bishop's seat in 1689, when the office of bishop was abolished in the Church of Scotland, and the cathedral became the High Kirk of Aberdeen, though it is still popularly known as St Machar's Catrhedral.

Samuel Johnson and James Boswell came to Aberdeen in 1773 during their celebrated jouney recorded in A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland. Johnson wrote:

Under the name of Aberdeen are comprised two towns standing about a mile distant from each other, but governed, I think, by the same magistrates.

Old Aberdeen is the ancient episcopal city, in which are still to be seen the remains of the cathedral. It has the appearance of a town in decay, having been situated in times when commerce was yet unstudied, with very little attention to the commodities of the harbour.

New Aberdeen has all the bustle of prosperous trade, and all the shew of increasing opulence. It is built by the water-side. The houses are large and lofty, and the streets spacious and clean. They build almost wholly with the granite used in the new pavement of the streets of London, which is well known not to want hardness, yet they shape it easily. It is beautiful and must be very lasting.

What particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the merchants of Aberdeen, I have not inquired. The manufacture which forces itself upon a stranger’s eye is that of knit-stockings, on which the women of the lower class are visibly employed.

In each of these towns there is a college, or in stricter language, an university; for in both there are professors of the same parts of learning, and the colleges hold their sessions and confer degrees separately, with total independence of one on the other.

—Samuel Johnson: A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland

Character and land use

The central part of the old town is a conservation area rich in historical buildings, some dating to the Middle Ages, and many vernacular buildings of the 17th-early 19th centuries built in the locally ubiquitous grey granite. A notable feature of the later buildings is the early use of hand-made bricks to build up gables, top garden walls, etc.; this use of brick being rare elsewhere in the northern shires before the late 19th century. A number of the streets remain paved with stone setts. There are also several university buildings from the late 20th century.

Old Aberdeen is effectively the main campus of the University of Aberdeen. There are also residential and commercial properties, but many of these are owned by the university or owned by the staff and students of the university. Additionally the area includes a small police station, a pub, a bakery, and until recently its own Post Office (which has since moved into a shop just outside of the Old Aberdeen boundary). To the north of the university stands St Machar's Cathedral, whose mediæval ecclesiastical buildings formed the original Old Aberdeen before the University arrived in 1495.

Major historic buildings in Old Aberdeen include: the late 15th Century King's College Chapel, one of two surviving Scottish mediæval churches with open "crown" spires, and which has the largest surviving collection of mediæval woodcarving in any comparable building; St Machar's Cathedral itself; the recently restored Old Town House (early 18th century); and the Brig o' Balgownie (14th Century), now pedestrianised, and which is a contender for the title of Scotland's oldest surviving bridge.

Sights of the town

King's College and Old Aberdeen campus

The renowned buildings of King's College are perhaps the dominant structures of Old Aberdeen. The College itself now finds itself surrounded by the wider Old Aberdeen campus of the University of Aberdeen which, since the decline of Marischal College, is now the main focal point of the university. The area boasts two museums, King's Museum, which features changing exhibitions from the stores of the University and the Zoology Museum, home to the natural history collection belonging to the University.

The Old Town House

The Old Town House was the original home of the Burgh's local government, completed in 1789. It was originally the centrepoint for trading in Old Aberdeen (still discernible in the widening of the street to accommodate trading booths), and the mercat cross (head late mediæval, shaft more recent) stands outside it. The building is built of granite and is of restrained but elegant early Georgian design, with a fine cupola above the façade. It was acquired by the university in recent years, and was renovated in 2005. The Old Town House now houses King's Museum.

St Machar's Cathedral

St Machar's Cathedral

Main article: St Machar's Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of St Machar is the high kirk of the city of Aberdeen. It is part of the Church of Scotland. Since the abolition of prelacy in the Kirk, it is not technically a cathedral, but bears the name as an honorific title.

Cruickshank Botanic Gardens

Main article: Cruickshank Botanic Garden

The Cruickshank Botanic Gardens were a gift to the University of Aberdeen and opened in 1898. The gardens are set over 11 acre and are accessible to the public for no charge.

The Powis Gates

Just south of King's College and across the High Street stand the Powis Gates, an impressive and imposing archway with a Near Eastern influence demonstrated in its 'minaret' towers. These were erected in 1834 by Hugh Fraser Leslie of Powis, the owner of an estate which formerly lay behind them. The Fraser Leslie Arms are visible on the obverse of the arch, with a shield on the reverse showing the bust of three black men - a link to the family's involvement in a grant of freedom made to their slaves in Jamaica (or possibly impaled arms celebrating a marriage between a member of the Leslie family and a member of the Moir of Scotstoun family).

The entrance now leads to the University's Crombie-Johnston and King's Postgraduate Halls of Residence.

Seaton Park

Main article: Seaton Park

To the north boundary of Old Aberdeen lies Seaton Park, one of the city's largest open spaces. The park itself lies on the banks of the River Don. It is set over 67 acres and was purchased by the city for public use in 1947.

Arms of the Burgh of Old Aberdeen

Outside links

Old Aberdeen Community Council

• Aberdeen Heritage: Old Aberdeen
• Old Aberdeen Heritage Trail
• Old Aberdeen - University of Aberdeen
• University of Aberdeen