The estuaries of the Dee and Don teemed with fish, birds and eggs. They were naturally defensive areas and they offered rich food sources for hunters and gatherers. They later supported primitive farming on the sand and gravel laid by the last Ice Age. A couple of dozen settlements of extended families grew up around the estuaries of Dee, Don and Denburn. You could find them from as early as the second century A.D. at Donmouth, Seaton, Tillydrone, Torry, Fittie, Dee Village and the Green. They were eventfully to expand, amalgamate and merge with their inland cousins, to create Aberdeen.
The river names were Celtic. The Don was the Deathan (pronounced “Dane”): the Dee was the De (pronounced Day). The Don originally turned southwards from Seaton to cross the links to lap the Broad Hill and thereafter reach the sea. Around the two main estuaries there grew up 2 separate communities, New Aberdeen (the commercial hub due to the Dee providing a better anchorage) and Old Aberdeen (the religious hub) they were linked by the Spital Ridge, slowly covering the crescent shaped plain that sloped eastwards to the sea. The two Aberdeens didn’t always get on well together. Old Aberdeen was particularly sensitive to any sign of bullying by its bigger neighbour. There was a history of disputes over trading rights: The Incorporated Trades of Old Aberdeen were constantly at loggerheads with their counterparts in New Aberdeen.
The Spital gets its name from St Peter’s Hospital, founded in 1168 as a home for retired priests. It stood on the site of the modern St Peter’s cemetery. Much later, there was also a small leper hospital located at the Howe of Spital close to the current site of the King’s Crescent Fire Station. Leprosy was a dreaded disease that spread easily in the crowded and unhygienic conditions of the Middle Ages. Its victims came from all classes. Robert the Bruce probably died of the disease. There was no cure, only segregation. Once diagnosed or even misdiagnosed, lepers were excluded from normal society The Spital leper colony lasted at least 250 years from the 1360s to the 1610s.It was a little cluster of thatched cottages with a separate “sick house”. The lepers lived off charity, begging, and the produce of a croft dedicated to their needs. They lived a communal life, sharing what little they possessed. It was normal practice throughout Europe for one leper to be allowed into town to beg but he had to carry a rattle and a stick, was not allowed to touch anyone, and had to stay downwind of the citizens. In order to stop lepers going to the peat mosses to gather their winter fuel, King James VI in 1591 decreed that one peat from every cartload going to market be given to the lepers. The carters en route from Perwinnies Moss in Scotstown Moor would throw off a peat as they passed the colony. The location of the colony appears in Parson Gordon’s 1661 map as “ruins of the sick house”, a clear indication that it was no longer needed.
The oldest traces of Old Aberdeen can be found in Tillydrone, the “Hill of Thorns” (Tulach Draighinn). Below the artificial mound known as the Motte of Tillydrone, lies an ancient Bronze Age burial ground, a Cairn deliberately sited to be seen from a distance, it is linked with fire, the funeral pyres of the local chiefs and the signalling station to warn the Celts in time of trouble. On the Motte site there has been found traces of Simian pottery which more than likely had been traded with the Romans. There is clear evidence of human settlement there from the 2n d century. In medieval times, there was a small wooden chapel on top of the motte, a place for quiet contemplation. Next to the Motte we have a 20th century immigrant from New Aberdeen, Benholm’s Lodgings. It was rebuilt in the Netherkirkgate around 1610 for Sir Robert Keith of Benholm Castle near Inverbervie, whose older brother founded Marischal College. It was built just outside the burgh boundary and close to the well or wallie at Carnegie’s Brae and so it eventually was nicknamed the Wallhoose Tower. It had many owners before the ground floor was converted into a pub by James Pirie in 1895. He called it the Wallace Tower. It was B-listed in 1947 as the only remaining defensive Z-plan house in Scotland. When Marks and Spenser acquired the site in the early 1960s, they moved it stone by stone to Tillydrone where it was reconstructed in 1964.
The real starting-point for the development of Old Aberdeen was the construction of St Machar’s. The saint himself is difficult to trace: legend had him as a disciple of St Columba but none of Columba’s records give mention to Machar. The name probably stems from the Latin “Macarius” which means “blessed”. Another part of the legend says that he came here as a missionary and built his church where the river bends like a bishop’s crook, a crosier. The site is adjacent to the one chosen by the Celts on the safe high ground overlooking the Don. The earliest Christian church in the area probably dates from the 7t h century. Machar was probably a holy man from the early middle ages. One theory is that the name could come from “machair”, meaning “meadow land” near the sea i.e. Seaton, the place where the original church was built. St Machar’s could have remained a quaint little early church had it not been for King David I who, along with his imported Norman friends, modernised his kingdom and his Church. The monasteries had been the centres of Celtic Christianity. David reorganised 9 Bishoprics around Cathedrals and transferred the see from Mortlach in Banff to St Machar’s in Old Aberdeen. St Machar’s was probably built around 1165. A series of Bishops extended the simple church into a lovely Cathedral. The rebuild started around 1370. It then became a building site for centuries and provided work for generations of craftsmen. The civilian settlement lived off the work provided by the Cathedral.
Bishops were busy people. They had State duties to attend to as well as ecclesiastical ones. They were very often absent from their Cathedral and needed a team to carry out the day to day duties of the Bishopric. That administrative team, which was established in 1157, became known as the College of Canons and they resided in the Chanonry. There were 6 key members of the core team. The Archdeacon looked after the parish priests of the area: he too would be on his travels supporting the priests and helping them with parish problems. There were a hundred parishes within the Bishopric. The Dean acted as Bishop-substitute, he was effectively the team leader. The Precentor was in charge of organising church services, with particular attention given to the music and the choir. The Treasurer was in charge of the money whilst the Chancellor acted as secretary, being responsible for all paperwork: he also had duties in respect of running the school. The legal officer was responsible for all maters legal including the work of the church court. The team grew and grew as the years went by. By the mid-15t century it was almost 30 strong. Most of the Canons had a mansion in the Chanonry, paid for by one of the parishes. Whist the parishes tackled poverty, the Canons lived like lords in their own little enclave. By the time of Elphinstone, in the late 15th century, the Chanonry was enclosed by a protective wall and was gated – there were 4 gates. It was like a little walled town all to itself.
Perhaps the best-known Archdeacon was John Barbour, our first national poet. He served St Machar’s for 40 years. He wrote “The Brus” in Old Aberdeen in 1375: it tells the heroic tale of Scotland’s fight for freedom from English oppression, he wrote beautifully about the joy of freedom “He that always has been free Cannot well know the misery, The anger and the wretched Fate That links itself with slaves’ estate: But if he has been bought and sold A man loves freedom more than gold”. Certainly, the best known Bishop was William Elphinstone: he was the illegitimate son of a cleric of the same name, Professor William Elphinstone, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Glasgow University. William junior trained in law in France before leading the legal office of the Glasgow Diocese, he succeeded his father as Dean and even served a year as Rector of Glasgow University from where he was headhunted to become Chancellor of Scotland. Bishop Elphinstone was a very devout man, a workaholic who dedicated the last 26 years of his life to modernising his diocese and setting up and developing the key features of Old Aberdeen – the Cathedral, the University and the “Middle Toun”. He clearly saw education as the key to modernisation. He set up King’s College. He finally got approval from Pope Alexander VI, arguably the most unholy of Popes, in 1495. Alexander VI was a Borgia Pope, mired in corruption and tainted with murder. His enemies, the Medicis, painted a very grim picture of him. Among his brood from his several mistresses, perhaps Lucretia and Cesare were the most infamous. For all his many faults, Alexander VI did much to sponsor the Arts and to extend educational provision, as he did in Old Aberdeen.
Old Aberdeen was chosen rather than New Aberdeen because Elphinstone could be in total control in Old Aberdeen, whereas he would encounter endless obstacles and interference from the leading political families in New Aberdeen, the powerful Chalmers, Collison, Menzies and Cullen dynasties. Elphinstone’s University was originally called the College of the Holy Virgin in Nativity. Construction of the Chapel started in 1500 on an existing Christian site, using two types of sandstone – the hard-red stone in the lower half but for the upper half he used Moray sandstone shipped over a hundred sea miles from Covesea near Lossiemouth. The dedication ceremony took place in 1508. The original Crown steeple blew down in a gale in 1633 and had to be rebuilt. After the Reformation, the Chapel fell into disuse, the students were marched to St Machars. It was sometimes used for graduations until it was restored as a place of worship in 1871. Since then it has been in constant demand for graduate weddings. Kings College Chapel formed the north side of a courtyard or quad. To the east was the School for lectures with the Great Hall above. Behind the School were the kitchens and brewery. On the south side was the residential block for 24 masters and students. Further south, near the Powis Burn was the vegetable and herb garden. At the west corner there was a small junior school. The whole complex lay behind a wall of around nine feet in height. The whole complex followed the monastic model. Kings Chapel is the only survivor of Elphinstone’s original buildings.
From the earliest days, the University students were worked very hard. Lectures started at 6 a.m. and the students could spend ten hours a day in the classroom. A lot of their time was spent learning languages – Latin, Greek and French. Lectures had to be noted, memorised and tested the same day. The term started in October with two weeks of exams to test the fitness of the students for study. They then worked right through to July without a break. The catchment area was the whole of the north-east. Elphinstone was ambitious enough to set up five faculties – Arts, Canon Law, Civil Law, Medicine and Theology. Most students matriculated in the Arts, the other four faculties were mainly for postgraduate study. An Arts degree took 4 years; a degree in Theology took seven years. Much of the Arts course was centred on the works of Aristotle and the learned commentaries upon them. A study of Cicero also played a major role in the course. The students did not always get on well together. The sons of the nobility tended to look down on the common bursars. The bursars in turn tended to despise the pompous rich boys who usually lacked their academic strengths. To be a bursar, you had to be exceptionally able. The College brewery did not help matters by producing Best Ale and Bursar Ale. There were also tensions from time to time between Lowlanders and Highlanders.
Bishop Elphinstone also incorporated Old Aberdeen into a Burgh of Barony in 1489, he needed to do this so that he could justify the need for a university there. The Charter was granted by King James IV. New Aberdeen had achieved Burgh status in 1153. Elphinstone burned himself out and died of exhaustion in October 1514 because of his frantic efforts to restore stability to his country after the humiliating defeat at Flodden in 1513. He was 82.
Student numbers continually rose as the centuries wore on. By the 17th century there were obvious pressures on the space available, and there were growing concerns about the teaching load. Students were being cramped three to a room, sometimes even two to a bed. Some started taking up lodgings in the auld toon. Many of the sons of the nobility would arrive with servants, often with a personal tutor who would supplement the teaching, and guide his charge through the course. By the 18t h century, most students stayed in rented rooms, mainly in Old Aberdeen. Sometimes the entire family would move into Old Aberdeen for the duration of the son’s course.
The Burgh of Old Aberdeen had its own market cross; it held weekly markets in the High Street and two annual fairs. The Easter Fair took place over two days – the Thursday and Good Friday of Easter week. The sheep and cattle were bought and sold at Hillhead, the cloth market centred round the market cross, the Timmer Market was at Cluny’s Wynd at the High Street end of the Chanonry and the rest of the stalls were spread around the High Street. The Aulton Fair, sometimes called St Luke’s Fair lasted for eight days in mid October and was renowned for its side-shows. Fairs were well marketed and advertised, they created a lot of much-needed revenue. There were, however, hidden costs, they were expensive to police in that they generated rowdiness and drunken behaviour. Most of the traders and customers came from the north. At the market cross, important proclamations were read out and mundane punishments were meted out. The market cross was badly defaced by the zealots of the Reformation in 1560 and was further vandalised during the civil wars.
The bachelor enclaves of the enclosed Chanonry and the University, walled within College Bounds, were cut off from the ordinary folk of the Middle Town. The houses of the humble workers were built with their gables on to the High Street. Behind their houses lay their long narrow rig on which they kept livestock and reared pigs and hens: some even kept their ovens there. The earliest houses were timber-framed and thatched: fire was an ever-present fear in the middle ages. The back dykes to the rigs formed a defensive wall to keep out intruders such as Highland raiders. So, in effect, all three parts of Old Aberdeen – the Chanonry, the University, and the Town itself - were all walled.
The middens of the townsfolk would be piled up in the High Street, the stench being somewhat neutralised if not obliterated by the reek from the peat fires. Peat was readily available all round the old town. Hygiene was never too high on the agenda in the middle ages. Old Aberdeen butchers slaughtered their beasts on the High Street until the Town council eventually put a stop to that in 1740. Chamber pots were also frequently emptied there, usually under cover of darkness. Daily life was governed by the bells. Elphinstone installed 14 of them in the centre tower of St Machars. Three of them weighed more than half a ton each. They were very expensive to make, even more expensive to erect and were such an important a part of parish life that they were individually named. The Protestant reformer, the Earl of Moray, had them removed in 1658: he also stripped the roof of St Machars of lead and shipped the lot for sale in Holland to raise money for military equipment. The ship sank, and the precious bells were left to rust in the depths of the North Sea.
St Machar’s central tower collapsed in 1688 causing much damage. It was clamed that the cause of the collapse was that Cromwell’s men removed the stones of the chancel as material for their fortress on Castlehill in New Aberdeen. Kings in 1521 was equipped with 13 bells, the largest of which, Trinity, weighed 2.5 tons and was acclaimed as the biggest in Scotland. One Kings bell was tolled at 4am in summer to signal the opening of he gates: another bell rung at 5am to wake the staff and students: it rung for 15 minutes. The big bells were only rung on special occasions; they were easily cracked if rung badly. By 1700 they were deemed too fragile to ring anymore and were recast. One of the smaller bells still survives.
The Reformation must have come as a shock to Catholic Old Aberdeen. The presence of the Earl of Huntly and his armed retinue saved St Machar’s from the wrecking mob but couldn’t stop the wind of change. St Machar’s became a Protestant parish church; Kings became a Protestant University in 1569 under a very tactful Principal, Alexander Arbuthnot. The Auld Toon, however, did not turn 100% Protestant – Catholics continued to practice their own beliefs, and Episcopalianism flourished. There continued to be a problem of in-coming beggars. The Catholic Church had always generously offered free food to the poor and this continued to attract starving papers to the burgh even after the Reformation. Hunger has never been sectarian.
The Snow Kirk survived. The Church of Our Lady of the Snows was founded by Bishop Elphinstone in memory of his visit to Rome in the winter of 1494 en route to the Vatican to petition Pope Alexander VI for his university project. He visited Rome’s Snow Church, Santa Maria Ad Nives and found it a very moving experience. The Snow Kirk was built as the parish church for the Middle Toun and it remained so until amalgamated with St Machars in the 1580s. The kirk stood until 1640.The Old Aberdeen Snow Kirkyard continued to hold Catholic burials long after the Reformation and was known from the 18t h Century as the Papists Burial Ground. The burial ground remains today, half hidden but still atmospheric.
There were two alms houses in Old Aberdeen, one for men and one for women. The one for men was known as the Bede House, it stood on the Tillydrone edge of the modern Seaton Park from the early 16t h century. The Bedemen were expected to pray for the soul of the King. There were 18 Bedemen even until the 1920s. Their name is retained in the St Machar Drive sheltered development. The Mitchell Hospital was for women: it had originally been endowed by the United Trades early in the 18t h century and lasted around 100 years until David Mitchell endowed his convent-style hospital for 5 widows and daughters of Burgesses. In 1924 it was modernised into four self-contained homes.
By the 17th century we have a clear picture of a thriving little town of 900 inhabitants. The local census of 1636 shows that it was mainly a weaving community. Some weavers were wealthy enough to employ several servants. The weavers’ sheds were mainly clustered around the rigs of the east side of the High Street There were 143 separate households in the High Street alone, in fairly crowded conditions. Some 10% of the population were female servants. There was also a scattering of skilled trades. There were shoemakers (cordiners), butchers (fleshers), hammermen (from smiths to coopers) and tailors. There was one net-weaver, Archibald Smythe, to supply the salmon fishers at the Cruives and Balgownie. There was also a saddler.
Then there were the brewers (mainly female), the bakers, three “breidsellers”, a “kailseller” and a female “pudding-wright”, Elspeth Gray, who made mealy puddings with oatmeal and presumably also made black puddings, and sausages. Elspet Forsyth earned her living selling dulse (seaweed). There was also a candle maker (probably for church contracts because most people would make their own tallow candles) and a bookbinder. Much of the female population was employed as spinsters (making yarn) or stocking-makers (“shankers”). There was also, of course, a midwife (“commer”).
The Chanonry attracted wealthy residents after the Reformation. Some of the Catholic gentry had homes there such as the Earl of Huntly and the Earl of Errol. There was also a scattering of “goodwives” (wealthy widows) enjoying the tranquillity of the old town where the crime rate was negligible, the people were friendly, and shopping was relatively easy. Some preferred the hustle and bustle of the High Street to the tranquillity of the Chanonry. Lord Seton certainly did.
The Loch of Old Aberdeen that covered the site of St Machar Academy playing-fields and the play park on the other side of St Machars Drive had an island in the middle (probably a crannog) on which Sir Alexander Gordon of Cluny built a summerhouse. He also had a boat to get him to it from his extensive garden that stretched from Cluny’s port. He had purchased the first three properties on the west side of the Chanonry in 1623 and enclosed them into his massive garden which included the entire site of the Cruickshank Gardens and stretched to the modern Tillydrone roundabout.
The problems of morality sometimes pushed the strict Protestant ethic to the limit. The Kirk Session dealt energetically with any suspected breach of the morality laws. Drinking alcohol was a recurring problem, as was the sin of playing games on the Sabbath: football was bad enough: card games, using the Devils’ picture book, were even worse. The moral Gestapo of the elders were sorely tried by the continuation of the habits of fiddling and dancing at weddings. There were even youngsters who kept up the old custom of lighting bonfires to celebrate the summer solstice, a practice that stretched back to the pre-Christian era and gives us a possible link with the rituals carried out at the cairn at Tillydrone Motte.
The stool of repentance was used regularly on the Sabbath, with the offenders further humiliated by having to adorn sackcloth and go barefoot. Scourging at the market cross was so frequent that a professional scourge had to be employed at the generous rate of eight shillings a week. Bad offenders were usually whipped out of town and banished thereafter. Jails cost money: Old Aberdeen had a jail, but it was mainly used as a holding cell pre-trial. Minor offenders may spend a day in the “jougs” wearing a iron collar attached to the market cross, a suitable target for mockery and missiles. The court had to deal with all manner of complaints. Debts were common in the credit driven economy. Assaults were frequent: men tended to use their fists as their chosen weapons, women tended to use their tongues. All were likely to be reprimanded and fined. The same characters appear time and time again in the court records. There were some unusual cases such as the complaint that a dog on heat attracted so many other dogs that a kale yard was damaged, and a low thatched roof was left in a state of disrepair. There were even cases of suspected witchcraft, usually given little more than a stern warning. Old Aberdeen was never prone to extremism, but sometimes became victim to that phenomenon.
In 1638, attempts to anglicise worship in the Scottish Kirk gave rise to the National Covenant. This had very little support in either of the Aberdeens. Nevertheless, late in March 1639 Old Aberdeen was occupied by a Covenanting army that was said to be 2000 strong. The good citizens duly signed up to the Covenant – it saved blood but not money. By 1644 Old Aberdeen had to buy muskets to defend itself from Irish rebels and to equip, at great cost, 12 foot soldiers and one horseman. It wasn’t a panic measure; the threat was very real. The Marquis of Montrose with some 1500 Irish troops sent the Covenanters packing from Aberdeen in the Battle of Justice Mills, in September 1644, and for three days they looted, raped and murdered their way through the town, stripping the clothes from their victims and ransacking houses. Old Aberdeen escaped relatively unscathed. Indeed, it benefitted from Aberdeen’s troubles. Many Aberdeen businessmen switched to the more peaceable Old Aberdeen. They had one other very strong reason to move – the Bubonic Plague.
The April 1647 outbreak in Aberdeen was a particularly aggressive one: it had reached epidemic proportions by May and was to take a very heavy death toll before it died out in December. Old Aberdeen was surprisingly slow to react to it, it didn’t go on plague alert until July, by which time it was too late. Eventually the taverns were closed, the markets were stopped, and sermons and services were suspended. This upset the finely balanced Old Aberdeen economy and it took some time to recover from the setback. As usual, the poorest were the first to suffer. With no Kirk services, there were no collections and therefore no funds for poor relief. Although open air services were held in Scotstown, Persley and Grandholm, the money collected was given to the plague victims quarantined in isolation huts. When the plague struck again in the summer of 1648, Old Aberdeen completely cut itself off from its unhealthy neighbour. With increased business following the plague years came increased jobs and a surge in population. By the early 1700s the population of Old Aberdeen had doubled to 1800. Industries were prospering. Brick-making, pottery, stocking-making were now thriving, and the salmon fishers were kept busy supplying both local and foreign markets.
Brewing was also becoming big business. The first brewery had been chartered by Bishop Elphinstone in 1504. In the Middle Town many of the small-time brewers were widows eking an existence by supplying their neighbours. By the late 17t h century brewing in Old Aberdeen was on an industrial scale. Smith, Irvine and Company from the early 18t h century was producing beer, ale and porter. Balmoral Castle was actually supplied in the 19t h century by Mr Thomson of Powis Lodge: it was a four-day round trip to do so. Part of the Old Brewery is still used for tutorials by the University as part of New Kings.
Brick-making probably started in Seaton in the middle ages. By the 18t h century it had grown into a full-blown industry, diversifying from bricks to tiles, chimney pots, and a range of ceramics. In the 19t h century a specialist ceramic company owned by the master potter Thomas Gavin from Lanarkshire produced a huge array of domestic pottery, both plain and decorative. There was a wide rage of bowls of all shapes ad sizes, some lovely butter tubs and attractively designed cheese bells. In 1903 the firm was bought out by the florist Ben Reid to mass produce flower pots. Two years later, Arthur Mills from Derbyshire breathed new life into Seaton pottery. It survived until the age of plastics pushed it out of business. It finally closed in 1964.
By that time, of course, old Aberdeen had ceased to be a separate burgh. It had lasted over 400 years as a free burgh. It has its own Provost, Baillies, Town House, coat of arms and motto (“By Harmony all Things Increase”). The iconic Town House dates from 1788 and is unmistakably Georgian, built in simple granite ashlars and with a magnificent clock tower topped with an octagonal bell house. It is a dignified building and has been carefully and tastefully restored. The view from the upper windows looking down to the triangular market-place and along the High Street is a breath-taking one. It was lack of money that eventually drove Old Aberdeen reluctantly into amalgamation with New Aberdeen in 1891. The citizens desperately needed a new water supply, street lighting and adequate policing. Such things were unaffordable to them as a little burgh. Old Aberdeen became what it always feared would happen - a mere suburb of the city, a half-forgotten backwater remote from the mainstream developments. To a large extent it has become a University town: the University has taken over much of the land and many of the old buildings.
It lost its independence, but it hasn’t lost its dignity and its beauty. It still retains its unique charm; it is still a quaint town of wynds and closes. The local poet, George Harvey, in his chronicle play on Elphinstone has the Bishop saying
“I’ve never seen autumn come with richer gold With lovelier tapestries at dawn and dusk Often it seems to me our autumn here Is but the birth of spring”
It is difficult to disagree with that comment. Decked in its autumn colours Old Aberdeen is strikingly beautiful. It is also picturesque with a sprinkling of winter snow. Much of the High Street is of 18th and 19t h century design. The berry red chimney stacks are built of Seaton bricks and they add to the character of the place. The forgotten city is one of the brightest jewels in the crown of Aberdeen.
The Spital gets its name from St Peter’s Hospital, founded in 1168 as a home for retired priests. It stood on the site of the modern St Peter’s cemetery. Much later, there was also a small leper hospital located at the Howe of Spital close to the current site of the King’s Crescent Fire Station. Leprosy was a dreaded disease that spread easily in the crowded and unhygienic conditions of the Middle Ages. Its victims came from all classes. Robert the Bruce probably died of the disease. There was no cure, only segregation. Once diagnosed or even misdiagnosed, lepers were excluded from normal society The Spital leper colony lasted at least 250 years from the 1360s to the 1610s.It was a little cluster of thatched cottages with a separate “sick house”. The lepers lived off charity, begging, and the produce of a croft dedicated to their needs. They lived a communal life, sharing what little they possessed. It was normal practice throughout Europe for one leper to be allowed into town to beg but he had to carry a rattle and a stick, was not allowed to touch anyone, and had to stay downwind of the citizens. In order to stop lepers going to the peat mosses to gather their winter fuel, King James VI in 1591 decreed that one peat from every cartload going to market be given to the lepers. The carters en route from Perwinnies Moss in Scotstown Moor would throw off a peat as they passed the colony. The location of the colony appears in Parson Gordon’s 1661 map as “ruins of the sick house”, a clear indication that it was no longer needed.
The oldest traces of Old Aberdeen can be found in Tillydrone, the “Hill of Thorns” (Tulach Draighinn). Below the artificial mound known as the Motte of Tillydrone, lies an ancient Bronze Age burial ground, a Cairn deliberately sited to be seen from a distance, it is linked with fire, the funeral pyres of the local chiefs and the signalling station to warn the Celts in time of trouble. On the Motte site there has been found traces of Simian pottery which more than likely had been traded with the Romans. There is clear evidence of human settlement there from the 2n d century. In medieval times, there was a small wooden chapel on top of the motte, a place for quiet contemplation. Next to the Motte we have a 20th century immigrant from New Aberdeen, Benholm’s Lodgings. It was rebuilt in the Netherkirkgate around 1610 for Sir Robert Keith of Benholm Castle near Inverbervie, whose older brother founded Marischal College. It was built just outside the burgh boundary and close to the well or wallie at Carnegie’s Brae and so it eventually was nicknamed the Wallhoose Tower. It had many owners before the ground floor was converted into a pub by James Pirie in 1895. He called it the Wallace Tower. It was B-listed in 1947 as the only remaining defensive Z-plan house in Scotland. When Marks and Spenser acquired the site in the early 1960s, they moved it stone by stone to Tillydrone where it was reconstructed in 1964.
The real starting-point for the development of Old Aberdeen was the construction of St Machar’s. The saint himself is difficult to trace: legend had him as a disciple of St Columba but none of Columba’s records give mention to Machar. The name probably stems from the Latin “Macarius” which means “blessed”. Another part of the legend says that he came here as a missionary and built his church where the river bends like a bishop’s crook, a crosier. The site is adjacent to the one chosen by the Celts on the safe high ground overlooking the Don. The earliest Christian church in the area probably dates from the 7t h century. Machar was probably a holy man from the early middle ages. One theory is that the name could come from “machair”, meaning “meadow land” near the sea i.e. Seaton, the place where the original church was built. St Machar’s could have remained a quaint little early church had it not been for King David I who, along with his imported Norman friends, modernised his kingdom and his Church. The monasteries had been the centres of Celtic Christianity. David reorganised 9 Bishoprics around Cathedrals and transferred the see from Mortlach in Banff to St Machar’s in Old Aberdeen. St Machar’s was probably built around 1165. A series of Bishops extended the simple church into a lovely Cathedral. The rebuild started around 1370. It then became a building site for centuries and provided work for generations of craftsmen. The civilian settlement lived off the work provided by the Cathedral.
Bishops were busy people. They had State duties to attend to as well as ecclesiastical ones. They were very often absent from their Cathedral and needed a team to carry out the day to day duties of the Bishopric. That administrative team, which was established in 1157, became known as the College of Canons and they resided in the Chanonry. There were 6 key members of the core team. The Archdeacon looked after the parish priests of the area: he too would be on his travels supporting the priests and helping them with parish problems. There were a hundred parishes within the Bishopric. The Dean acted as Bishop-substitute, he was effectively the team leader. The Precentor was in charge of organising church services, with particular attention given to the music and the choir. The Treasurer was in charge of the money whilst the Chancellor acted as secretary, being responsible for all paperwork: he also had duties in respect of running the school. The legal officer was responsible for all maters legal including the work of the church court. The team grew and grew as the years went by. By the mid-15t century it was almost 30 strong. Most of the Canons had a mansion in the Chanonry, paid for by one of the parishes. Whist the parishes tackled poverty, the Canons lived like lords in their own little enclave. By the time of Elphinstone, in the late 15th century, the Chanonry was enclosed by a protective wall and was gated – there were 4 gates. It was like a little walled town all to itself.
Perhaps the best-known Archdeacon was John Barbour, our first national poet. He served St Machar’s for 40 years. He wrote “The Brus” in Old Aberdeen in 1375: it tells the heroic tale of Scotland’s fight for freedom from English oppression, he wrote beautifully about the joy of freedom “He that always has been free Cannot well know the misery, The anger and the wretched Fate That links itself with slaves’ estate: But if he has been bought and sold A man loves freedom more than gold”. Certainly, the best known Bishop was William Elphinstone: he was the illegitimate son of a cleric of the same name, Professor William Elphinstone, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Glasgow University. William junior trained in law in France before leading the legal office of the Glasgow Diocese, he succeeded his father as Dean and even served a year as Rector of Glasgow University from where he was headhunted to become Chancellor of Scotland. Bishop Elphinstone was a very devout man, a workaholic who dedicated the last 26 years of his life to modernising his diocese and setting up and developing the key features of Old Aberdeen – the Cathedral, the University and the “Middle Toun”. He clearly saw education as the key to modernisation. He set up King’s College. He finally got approval from Pope Alexander VI, arguably the most unholy of Popes, in 1495. Alexander VI was a Borgia Pope, mired in corruption and tainted with murder. His enemies, the Medicis, painted a very grim picture of him. Among his brood from his several mistresses, perhaps Lucretia and Cesare were the most infamous. For all his many faults, Alexander VI did much to sponsor the Arts and to extend educational provision, as he did in Old Aberdeen.
Old Aberdeen was chosen rather than New Aberdeen because Elphinstone could be in total control in Old Aberdeen, whereas he would encounter endless obstacles and interference from the leading political families in New Aberdeen, the powerful Chalmers, Collison, Menzies and Cullen dynasties. Elphinstone’s University was originally called the College of the Holy Virgin in Nativity. Construction of the Chapel started in 1500 on an existing Christian site, using two types of sandstone – the hard-red stone in the lower half but for the upper half he used Moray sandstone shipped over a hundred sea miles from Covesea near Lossiemouth. The dedication ceremony took place in 1508. The original Crown steeple blew down in a gale in 1633 and had to be rebuilt. After the Reformation, the Chapel fell into disuse, the students were marched to St Machars. It was sometimes used for graduations until it was restored as a place of worship in 1871. Since then it has been in constant demand for graduate weddings. Kings College Chapel formed the north side of a courtyard or quad. To the east was the School for lectures with the Great Hall above. Behind the School were the kitchens and brewery. On the south side was the residential block for 24 masters and students. Further south, near the Powis Burn was the vegetable and herb garden. At the west corner there was a small junior school. The whole complex lay behind a wall of around nine feet in height. The whole complex followed the monastic model. Kings Chapel is the only survivor of Elphinstone’s original buildings.
From the earliest days, the University students were worked very hard. Lectures started at 6 a.m. and the students could spend ten hours a day in the classroom. A lot of their time was spent learning languages – Latin, Greek and French. Lectures had to be noted, memorised and tested the same day. The term started in October with two weeks of exams to test the fitness of the students for study. They then worked right through to July without a break. The catchment area was the whole of the north-east. Elphinstone was ambitious enough to set up five faculties – Arts, Canon Law, Civil Law, Medicine and Theology. Most students matriculated in the Arts, the other four faculties were mainly for postgraduate study. An Arts degree took 4 years; a degree in Theology took seven years. Much of the Arts course was centred on the works of Aristotle and the learned commentaries upon them. A study of Cicero also played a major role in the course. The students did not always get on well together. The sons of the nobility tended to look down on the common bursars. The bursars in turn tended to despise the pompous rich boys who usually lacked their academic strengths. To be a bursar, you had to be exceptionally able. The College brewery did not help matters by producing Best Ale and Bursar Ale. There were also tensions from time to time between Lowlanders and Highlanders.
Bishop Elphinstone also incorporated Old Aberdeen into a Burgh of Barony in 1489, he needed to do this so that he could justify the need for a university there. The Charter was granted by King James IV. New Aberdeen had achieved Burgh status in 1153. Elphinstone burned himself out and died of exhaustion in October 1514 because of his frantic efforts to restore stability to his country after the humiliating defeat at Flodden in 1513. He was 82.
Student numbers continually rose as the centuries wore on. By the 17th century there were obvious pressures on the space available, and there were growing concerns about the teaching load. Students were being cramped three to a room, sometimes even two to a bed. Some started taking up lodgings in the auld toon. Many of the sons of the nobility would arrive with servants, often with a personal tutor who would supplement the teaching, and guide his charge through the course. By the 18t h century, most students stayed in rented rooms, mainly in Old Aberdeen. Sometimes the entire family would move into Old Aberdeen for the duration of the son’s course.
The Burgh of Old Aberdeen had its own market cross; it held weekly markets in the High Street and two annual fairs. The Easter Fair took place over two days – the Thursday and Good Friday of Easter week. The sheep and cattle were bought and sold at Hillhead, the cloth market centred round the market cross, the Timmer Market was at Cluny’s Wynd at the High Street end of the Chanonry and the rest of the stalls were spread around the High Street. The Aulton Fair, sometimes called St Luke’s Fair lasted for eight days in mid October and was renowned for its side-shows. Fairs were well marketed and advertised, they created a lot of much-needed revenue. There were, however, hidden costs, they were expensive to police in that they generated rowdiness and drunken behaviour. Most of the traders and customers came from the north. At the market cross, important proclamations were read out and mundane punishments were meted out. The market cross was badly defaced by the zealots of the Reformation in 1560 and was further vandalised during the civil wars.
The bachelor enclaves of the enclosed Chanonry and the University, walled within College Bounds, were cut off from the ordinary folk of the Middle Town. The houses of the humble workers were built with their gables on to the High Street. Behind their houses lay their long narrow rig on which they kept livestock and reared pigs and hens: some even kept their ovens there. The earliest houses were timber-framed and thatched: fire was an ever-present fear in the middle ages. The back dykes to the rigs formed a defensive wall to keep out intruders such as Highland raiders. So, in effect, all three parts of Old Aberdeen – the Chanonry, the University, and the Town itself - were all walled.
The middens of the townsfolk would be piled up in the High Street, the stench being somewhat neutralised if not obliterated by the reek from the peat fires. Peat was readily available all round the old town. Hygiene was never too high on the agenda in the middle ages. Old Aberdeen butchers slaughtered their beasts on the High Street until the Town council eventually put a stop to that in 1740. Chamber pots were also frequently emptied there, usually under cover of darkness. Daily life was governed by the bells. Elphinstone installed 14 of them in the centre tower of St Machars. Three of them weighed more than half a ton each. They were very expensive to make, even more expensive to erect and were such an important a part of parish life that they were individually named. The Protestant reformer, the Earl of Moray, had them removed in 1658: he also stripped the roof of St Machars of lead and shipped the lot for sale in Holland to raise money for military equipment. The ship sank, and the precious bells were left to rust in the depths of the North Sea.
St Machar’s central tower collapsed in 1688 causing much damage. It was clamed that the cause of the collapse was that Cromwell’s men removed the stones of the chancel as material for their fortress on Castlehill in New Aberdeen. Kings in 1521 was equipped with 13 bells, the largest of which, Trinity, weighed 2.5 tons and was acclaimed as the biggest in Scotland. One Kings bell was tolled at 4am in summer to signal the opening of he gates: another bell rung at 5am to wake the staff and students: it rung for 15 minutes. The big bells were only rung on special occasions; they were easily cracked if rung badly. By 1700 they were deemed too fragile to ring anymore and were recast. One of the smaller bells still survives.
The Reformation must have come as a shock to Catholic Old Aberdeen. The presence of the Earl of Huntly and his armed retinue saved St Machar’s from the wrecking mob but couldn’t stop the wind of change. St Machar’s became a Protestant parish church; Kings became a Protestant University in 1569 under a very tactful Principal, Alexander Arbuthnot. The Auld Toon, however, did not turn 100% Protestant – Catholics continued to practice their own beliefs, and Episcopalianism flourished. There continued to be a problem of in-coming beggars. The Catholic Church had always generously offered free food to the poor and this continued to attract starving papers to the burgh even after the Reformation. Hunger has never been sectarian.
The Snow Kirk survived. The Church of Our Lady of the Snows was founded by Bishop Elphinstone in memory of his visit to Rome in the winter of 1494 en route to the Vatican to petition Pope Alexander VI for his university project. He visited Rome’s Snow Church, Santa Maria Ad Nives and found it a very moving experience. The Snow Kirk was built as the parish church for the Middle Toun and it remained so until amalgamated with St Machars in the 1580s. The kirk stood until 1640.The Old Aberdeen Snow Kirkyard continued to hold Catholic burials long after the Reformation and was known from the 18t h Century as the Papists Burial Ground. The burial ground remains today, half hidden but still atmospheric.
There were two alms houses in Old Aberdeen, one for men and one for women. The one for men was known as the Bede House, it stood on the Tillydrone edge of the modern Seaton Park from the early 16t h century. The Bedemen were expected to pray for the soul of the King. There were 18 Bedemen even until the 1920s. Their name is retained in the St Machar Drive sheltered development. The Mitchell Hospital was for women: it had originally been endowed by the United Trades early in the 18t h century and lasted around 100 years until David Mitchell endowed his convent-style hospital for 5 widows and daughters of Burgesses. In 1924 it was modernised into four self-contained homes.
By the 17th century we have a clear picture of a thriving little town of 900 inhabitants. The local census of 1636 shows that it was mainly a weaving community. Some weavers were wealthy enough to employ several servants. The weavers’ sheds were mainly clustered around the rigs of the east side of the High Street There were 143 separate households in the High Street alone, in fairly crowded conditions. Some 10% of the population were female servants. There was also a scattering of skilled trades. There were shoemakers (cordiners), butchers (fleshers), hammermen (from smiths to coopers) and tailors. There was one net-weaver, Archibald Smythe, to supply the salmon fishers at the Cruives and Balgownie. There was also a saddler.
Then there were the brewers (mainly female), the bakers, three “breidsellers”, a “kailseller” and a female “pudding-wright”, Elspeth Gray, who made mealy puddings with oatmeal and presumably also made black puddings, and sausages. Elspet Forsyth earned her living selling dulse (seaweed). There was also a candle maker (probably for church contracts because most people would make their own tallow candles) and a bookbinder. Much of the female population was employed as spinsters (making yarn) or stocking-makers (“shankers”). There was also, of course, a midwife (“commer”).
The Chanonry attracted wealthy residents after the Reformation. Some of the Catholic gentry had homes there such as the Earl of Huntly and the Earl of Errol. There was also a scattering of “goodwives” (wealthy widows) enjoying the tranquillity of the old town where the crime rate was negligible, the people were friendly, and shopping was relatively easy. Some preferred the hustle and bustle of the High Street to the tranquillity of the Chanonry. Lord Seton certainly did.
The Loch of Old Aberdeen that covered the site of St Machar Academy playing-fields and the play park on the other side of St Machars Drive had an island in the middle (probably a crannog) on which Sir Alexander Gordon of Cluny built a summerhouse. He also had a boat to get him to it from his extensive garden that stretched from Cluny’s port. He had purchased the first three properties on the west side of the Chanonry in 1623 and enclosed them into his massive garden which included the entire site of the Cruickshank Gardens and stretched to the modern Tillydrone roundabout.
The problems of morality sometimes pushed the strict Protestant ethic to the limit. The Kirk Session dealt energetically with any suspected breach of the morality laws. Drinking alcohol was a recurring problem, as was the sin of playing games on the Sabbath: football was bad enough: card games, using the Devils’ picture book, were even worse. The moral Gestapo of the elders were sorely tried by the continuation of the habits of fiddling and dancing at weddings. There were even youngsters who kept up the old custom of lighting bonfires to celebrate the summer solstice, a practice that stretched back to the pre-Christian era and gives us a possible link with the rituals carried out at the cairn at Tillydrone Motte.
The stool of repentance was used regularly on the Sabbath, with the offenders further humiliated by having to adorn sackcloth and go barefoot. Scourging at the market cross was so frequent that a professional scourge had to be employed at the generous rate of eight shillings a week. Bad offenders were usually whipped out of town and banished thereafter. Jails cost money: Old Aberdeen had a jail, but it was mainly used as a holding cell pre-trial. Minor offenders may spend a day in the “jougs” wearing a iron collar attached to the market cross, a suitable target for mockery and missiles. The court had to deal with all manner of complaints. Debts were common in the credit driven economy. Assaults were frequent: men tended to use their fists as their chosen weapons, women tended to use their tongues. All were likely to be reprimanded and fined. The same characters appear time and time again in the court records. There were some unusual cases such as the complaint that a dog on heat attracted so many other dogs that a kale yard was damaged, and a low thatched roof was left in a state of disrepair. There were even cases of suspected witchcraft, usually given little more than a stern warning. Old Aberdeen was never prone to extremism, but sometimes became victim to that phenomenon.
In 1638, attempts to anglicise worship in the Scottish Kirk gave rise to the National Covenant. This had very little support in either of the Aberdeens. Nevertheless, late in March 1639 Old Aberdeen was occupied by a Covenanting army that was said to be 2000 strong. The good citizens duly signed up to the Covenant – it saved blood but not money. By 1644 Old Aberdeen had to buy muskets to defend itself from Irish rebels and to equip, at great cost, 12 foot soldiers and one horseman. It wasn’t a panic measure; the threat was very real. The Marquis of Montrose with some 1500 Irish troops sent the Covenanters packing from Aberdeen in the Battle of Justice Mills, in September 1644, and for three days they looted, raped and murdered their way through the town, stripping the clothes from their victims and ransacking houses. Old Aberdeen escaped relatively unscathed. Indeed, it benefitted from Aberdeen’s troubles. Many Aberdeen businessmen switched to the more peaceable Old Aberdeen. They had one other very strong reason to move – the Bubonic Plague.
The April 1647 outbreak in Aberdeen was a particularly aggressive one: it had reached epidemic proportions by May and was to take a very heavy death toll before it died out in December. Old Aberdeen was surprisingly slow to react to it, it didn’t go on plague alert until July, by which time it was too late. Eventually the taverns were closed, the markets were stopped, and sermons and services were suspended. This upset the finely balanced Old Aberdeen economy and it took some time to recover from the setback. As usual, the poorest were the first to suffer. With no Kirk services, there were no collections and therefore no funds for poor relief. Although open air services were held in Scotstown, Persley and Grandholm, the money collected was given to the plague victims quarantined in isolation huts. When the plague struck again in the summer of 1648, Old Aberdeen completely cut itself off from its unhealthy neighbour. With increased business following the plague years came increased jobs and a surge in population. By the early 1700s the population of Old Aberdeen had doubled to 1800. Industries were prospering. Brick-making, pottery, stocking-making were now thriving, and the salmon fishers were kept busy supplying both local and foreign markets.
Brewing was also becoming big business. The first brewery had been chartered by Bishop Elphinstone in 1504. In the Middle Town many of the small-time brewers were widows eking an existence by supplying their neighbours. By the late 17t h century brewing in Old Aberdeen was on an industrial scale. Smith, Irvine and Company from the early 18t h century was producing beer, ale and porter. Balmoral Castle was actually supplied in the 19t h century by Mr Thomson of Powis Lodge: it was a four-day round trip to do so. Part of the Old Brewery is still used for tutorials by the University as part of New Kings.
Brick-making probably started in Seaton in the middle ages. By the 18t h century it had grown into a full-blown industry, diversifying from bricks to tiles, chimney pots, and a range of ceramics. In the 19t h century a specialist ceramic company owned by the master potter Thomas Gavin from Lanarkshire produced a huge array of domestic pottery, both plain and decorative. There was a wide rage of bowls of all shapes ad sizes, some lovely butter tubs and attractively designed cheese bells. In 1903 the firm was bought out by the florist Ben Reid to mass produce flower pots. Two years later, Arthur Mills from Derbyshire breathed new life into Seaton pottery. It survived until the age of plastics pushed it out of business. It finally closed in 1964.
By that time, of course, old Aberdeen had ceased to be a separate burgh. It had lasted over 400 years as a free burgh. It has its own Provost, Baillies, Town House, coat of arms and motto (“By Harmony all Things Increase”). The iconic Town House dates from 1788 and is unmistakably Georgian, built in simple granite ashlars and with a magnificent clock tower topped with an octagonal bell house. It is a dignified building and has been carefully and tastefully restored. The view from the upper windows looking down to the triangular market-place and along the High Street is a breath-taking one. It was lack of money that eventually drove Old Aberdeen reluctantly into amalgamation with New Aberdeen in 1891. The citizens desperately needed a new water supply, street lighting and adequate policing. Such things were unaffordable to them as a little burgh. Old Aberdeen became what it always feared would happen - a mere suburb of the city, a half-forgotten backwater remote from the mainstream developments. To a large extent it has become a University town: the University has taken over much of the land and many of the old buildings.
It lost its independence, but it hasn’t lost its dignity and its beauty. It still retains its unique charm; it is still a quaint town of wynds and closes. The local poet, George Harvey, in his chronicle play on Elphinstone has the Bishop saying
“I’ve never seen autumn come with richer gold With lovelier tapestries at dawn and dusk Often it seems to me our autumn here Is but the birth of spring”
It is difficult to disagree with that comment. Decked in its autumn colours Old Aberdeen is strikingly beautiful. It is also picturesque with a sprinkling of winter snow. Much of the High Street is of 18th and 19t h century design. The berry red chimney stacks are built of Seaton bricks and they add to the character of the place. The forgotten city is one of the brightest jewels in the crown of Aberdeen.