We start the tour at the Union Street entrance to the Town House.
The Whipping-Stone
At the corner of Union Street and Broad Street we see the cobbles marking where public whippings took place. The Hangman’s duties included “scourging, burning and tormenting”. In really bad cases e.g. repeat offenders, the whipping would be through the streets of the town. Crowds would gather to witness the whippings.
In 1640, a woman convicted of “unbecoming behaviour” was scourged and then “drawn in a cart through the streets, bearing a paper crown on her head, the bellman going before proclaiming her offence”. She was then banished.
Women being whipped often had to wear the scold’s bridle: whipping of women was ended in 1817, whipping of men continued indoors after 1830. The practice remained well into the 20th century with the birching of young male offenders until the system was abolished in 1948
The Whipping-Stone
At the corner of Union Street and Broad Street we see the cobbles marking where public whippings took place. The Hangman’s duties included “scourging, burning and tormenting”. In really bad cases e.g. repeat offenders, the whipping would be through the streets of the town. Crowds would gather to witness the whippings.
In 1640, a woman convicted of “unbecoming behaviour” was scourged and then “drawn in a cart through the streets, bearing a paper crown on her head, the bellman going before proclaiming her offence”. She was then banished.
Women being whipped often had to wear the scold’s bridle: whipping of women was ended in 1817, whipping of men continued indoors after 1830. The practice remained well into the 20th century with the birching of young male offenders until the system was abolished in 1948
Concert Court
We now move along Broad Street to the sign for Concert Court. Here in the 18th century there were weekly concerts performed by the Aberdeen Musical Society. One of the regular musicians on the violin was Francis Peacock the dance-master and miniaturist who gave his name to Peacock’s Close. Other musicians included James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy and John Gregory, the Professor of Medicine.
The Concert Hall is no longer there but on the site we now have the palatial Advocate’s Hall which was cleverly placed there in the 1870s to form a direct link to the Sheriff court. It was designed by James Matthews, a future Lord Provost (1883-5).Matthews also designed the new Grammar School. The site of Concert Hall was originally called Huxter Row, home of the “Lemon Tree” hostelry, and the street in which Robert Gordon was born.
The Netherkirkgate
This was simply the low road to the Mither Kirk One of the city gates stood here by the Well-House where Benholm’s Lodgings stood on the site now occupied by Marks and Spencer.
Guestrow
This is one of the oldest streets in Aberdeen; it is listed from the early 15th century. The name means “the road of the ghosts”, a reference to the spirit said to lurk in the graveyard of St Nicholas Kirk. A 1439 Charter calls it the Vicus Lemurum (Street of the Spectres)
It was once one of the more desirable streets in town and housed some of our wealthier citizens. Archibald Simpson was born into number 15 in 1790, the son of a successful tailor. The house next door, number 17 became home to the first Aberdeen Savings Bank in 1838.
By the end of the 19th century, the area had degenerated into a rough and overcrowded slum, “The Gush”, and was gradually demolished 1930-32 to make way for the widening of Broad Street. For a time the cleared area served as site for the travelling Cadona’s carnival and served as a car park.
Carnegie’s Brae
When Union Street was constructed, it was built on arches bridging over the old low lying wynds. Carnegie’s Brae is a classic example of the construction method. Building the arch involved slum clearance in the whole Putachieside area. Progress came at the price of human hardship.
Provost Skene’s House
This is the oldest domestic dwelling in Aberdeen and dates back to 1545, in the pre- Reformation era when Mary Queen was a 3 year old. The house is a good example of buildings constructed from gathered granite rubble, the type of dwellings being built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the richer burgesses to replace the timber and thatch dwellings of the late middle ages. The oldest part is the block to the west (furthest from Broad Street)
Over the years it had a series of rich owners. Bishop Blackburn, the minister of St Nicholas once owned it. The first major extension to the house was under the ownership of Matthew Lumsden who paid for the unique painted ceiling decorated with devotional panels, probably painted by Flemish artists. Lumsden was killed in the Covenanting skirmishes in 1639.
The next extension was built by Provost George Skene (1676-84), a merchant who had made his fortune in Danzig. This was his town house, he modernised it in the 1670s, adding the eastern staircase and turrets and changed the windows. All decorative features at this time, such as window margins, had to be in soft sandstone.
The house was twice occupied by the military.In 1639 the Loyalist forces of Lord Aboyne stayed here after their surprise victory at the “Trot of Turra”: they were later defeated in the Battle of the Brig o’ Dee by Montrose’s Covenanters.
In 1746, the Duke of Cumberland, chasing Bonnie Prince Charlie northwards, stayed here for six weeks, depleted the cellars and ruined the linen: the canny Council still honoured him as a Freeman.
The old house, through inheritance, fell into the hands of Elisabeth Duthie, of Duthie Park fame: she rented it in the late 19th century as the Victorian Lodging House and its decline thereafter was rapid. The building was saved from demolition following a long campaign. It was eventually refurbished by the Council, and opened by the Queen Mother in 1953. It incorporates some other features from the area, such as the gargoyle at the east gable, known as Russell’s Head and designed to frown on a hated neighbour. The gargoyle was saved during the demolition of Ragg’s Lane in 1959. The Russell family bakery business was shut down due to reasons of hygiene: George Russell always blamed the neighbour, Alexander Stephen, who was an ironmonger.
St Nicholas House
These municipal headquarters were built between 1962 and 1970. The whole complex cost £1.9 million and consists of a 15 storey tower as well as 3 storey offices along the frontage of Broad Street and Upperkirkgate. The 15 storey block was vacated by the end of August 2011 when the move to a revamped Marischal college took place.
Upperkirkgate
The Upperkirkgate Port was the last of Aberdeen’s gates to be demolished, in 1794, on the excuse that it was a traffic hazard. Above the gateway was a room used as the first police office. Many of the original houses were built gable end to the street, to save space. The old Wedding Bell building is a clear example of that type of building.
Marischal College
This was founded as a new University in April 1593 by the 4th Earl Marischal on land that once housed the Greyfriars of the Franciscan Order. The current buildings are of 2 distinct granite eras using different granite worked by different techniques. The inner quadrangle houses the Rubislaw stone buildings of Archibald Simpson’s 1837 design. They were completed in 1844, cost £30,000 and are dominated by the 235 feet of Mitchell Tower.
The Gothic frontage by Marshall Mackenzie which was started in the 1890s is in Kemnay granite and is a masterpiece of the granite carver’s art, mixing the clean blocks of granite with artistic fretting. It was opened in 1906 by King Edward VII
The heraldic shields over the gateway are much photographed but little understood. They depict from left to right – Lord Strathcona, the Chancellor of the University: Old Aberdeen: Bishop Elphinstone: The University: Earl Marischal: The City of Aberdeen: The Mitchell Family.
The Town House Extension
The foundation stone was laid by Lord Provost Robert Lennox in November 1975 and the building was officially opened by the Queen in 1977.
The New Town House 1868-74
This was originally going to be built in sandstone until John Fyfe of Kemnay offered granite at a very competitive rate. The style is partly Flemish (in memory of the rich trade links) with a touch of the neo-medieval, so-loved by Victorian architects.
The Sheriff Court
This was incorporated into the impressive Town House frontage in the early 1870s. The Sheriff Court records, the most complete in Scotland, date back to 1523. The court used to meet in the old Tolbooth although bigger trials were often heard in larger private houses.
The Tolbooth
There have been Tolbooths on this site since 1393. The present one dates back to 1616: it was built by Thomas Watson of Old Rayne. The steeple, spire and balustrade were added in 1629. A further extension in 1640 served as a Council Chamber until the grand new building of the late 1860s. The clock tower dates back to 1817.
The crowded cells witnessed terrible suffering over the years. They were packed not only by crooks but by persecuted Quakers throughout the 17th century. In the 18th century the inmates were often Jacobites. In 1746 in the round-up following Culloden, some 150 Jacobites were incarcerated there, unbelievably 96 at one time, jammed in like herrings in a barrel.
The East Prison
The cells were eventually replaced by the new Bridewell (West Prison) in the Chapel Street area in 1808. In 1831 a holding prison, mainly for those awaiting trial. The East Prison was built as an extension to the Tolbooth and lasted until 1891 when it was replaced by the new prison at Craiginches. The site then was used for a new Police headquarters in 1895.
The Hanging Stone
Until the late 18th century, hangings took place on Gallows Hill (at the Trinity cemetery end of Errol Street). There was also a Heading Hill for executions using Aberdeen’s guillotine, “The Maiden”. Common criminals were hanged, richer folk were beheaded.
From 1776 public hangings took place outside the Tolbooth, the victim facing down Marischal Street. The gallows would be erected the day before the hanging: the prisoner traditionally ate a hearty breakfast after the very disturbed night’s sleep listening to the hammering of the construction squad. The body was sometimes offered to Marischal college for dissection.
Stones at the side of the road mark the stop where the gallows were erected. The last public hanging in Aberdeen was in 1857 when John Booth was convicted of killing his mother-in-law (who had been trying to defend her daughter)
King Street
This was opened in 1801 following the New Streets Act of April 1800. Although it started off well, with grand buildings at the Castlegate end, it never matched Union Street and eventually settles into a sober suburban roadway.
Clydesdale Bank
This was the key site, the important hinge that joined the 2 new streets. Archibald Simpson’s design does it justice. His curved corner features giant Corinthian columns surmounted by a statue of Ceres, the Goddess of Plenty, (which most locals take to be Queen Victoria) with her cornucopia. It was built in well-worked granite blocks in 1839-42. It replaced the New Inn above which the masons had a lodge, reached from the rear entrance, in a lane still known as Lodge Walk.
The Medico-Chirurgical Building.
Number 29 King Street was built 1818-20 to plans by Archibald Simpson for a medical society founded in 1789 by 12 young doctors, led by Thomas McGrigor, who later was instrumental in founding the Army Medical Corps. MrGrigor’s memorial is the obelisk that stands proudly in the Duthie Park and is still referred to as Cleopatra’s needle.
The Arts Centre
This was built as the North Church in 1828-30 by John Smith. It is a beautiful building with a 4 column Ionic portico facing Queen Street with a square tower with a cylindrical “tower of winds”(following the Athenian model) at the top stage (usually referred to locally as the “pepper-pot”). It is built in the style of St Pancras Church in London.
St Andrew’s Cathedral
This Gothic design in 1816 gave Archibald Simpson his first major commission in Aberdeen. It was a £6000 project. It is largely a granite building with a sandstone façade facing King Street. It opened in 1817 as St Andrew’s Chapel and was raised to Cathedral status in 1914. By then a front porch had been added in 1911.
The Episcopal Church has strong links with the Episcopal Church on the USA. The USA’s first Episcopal Bishop, Samuel Seabury, was ordained in Aberdeen, in the upper floor of Bishop Skinner’s house in Longacre that served as a chapel, on 14 November 1784 by Skinner the Episcopal Bishop of Aberdeen. Longacre was a lane off Broad Street. Seabury had studied at Yale and Edinburgh University: he couldn’t be ordained in England because, as an American, he could not take the loyal oath.
A grateful American Episcopal Church wanted to mark the 150th anniversary of the event by building a replacement Cathedral in Broad Street, on the site of the present Town house extension. The Wall Street Crash put paid to that idea, but the Cathedral was extensively renovated with a new extension, a heraldic ceiling with shields of all the American states, and a memorial to Seabury. The Cathedral boasts a fine reed organ, has first-class acoustics, and had maintained a high musical tradition over the years.
La Lombarda
This claims to be the oldest Italian restaurant in Scotland. It didn’t always have such a grand title: many Aberdonians still remember it fondly as Joe Birnie’s Café.
The Castlegate
The castle dated from at least the early 13th century. It was in need of repair in 1264 and the work was done by Richard Cementarius, Richard the Mason, Aberdeen’s first recorded Provost (1272).
It was a Royal Castle, permanently occupied, and had its own Constable: it is possible that Edward I, “Hammer of the Scots” stayed there in 1296. It was destroyed along with its English garrison during Robert the Bruce’s struggle for the throne, probably in 1308.. A second Castle was built there by General Monck for Oliver Cromwell in 1651-2. There was then a lengthy military presence when the Barracks were built during the French Wars in 1794-6: they housed 600 men. In the 1930s the Gordon Highlanders used it as a depot. The site also played home to a Chapel in the 16th century and even housed Aberdeen’s first lighthouse. The Barracks eventually were used as emergency housing after World War II, before being demolished and replaced by the tower blocks, Virginia court and Marischal Court.
The Salvation Army Citadel
This was built in 1896 by James Souttar. It replaced the 1789 Records Office. It was deliberately built where it was most needed – to serve the slums around the Barracks. Its castle design, based on Balmoral Castle, was deliberately symbolic. Here was a place of refuge for sinners. It also reminds us of the medieval castle that gives the square its name. Bill Brogden astutely described the Citadel as “Tinkerbell’s Castle”. The design is such that it dominates the Castlegate.
The Justice Port
One of the city’s lockable gates through which condemned men were taken from the Tolbooth to the Gallows Hill. Their heads would soon afterwards be on display above the gate. Local folklore suggests that Wallace’s left foot was displayed there, but there is no evidence to support that story, In 1650, however, one of the Marquis of Montrose’s arms was displayed there (this disappointed some councillors who had been promised a leg). At the other side of the Citadel site was the Futtie Port whose hinge pins still survive in the gable of 4 Castle Terrace. The Terrace was built over an old lane called Hangman’s Brae (the municipal hangman lived there)
The Mercat Cross
This was erected in 1696 by John Montgomery at the cost of £100 plus materials. It is a sandstone gem and it shows great craftsmanship and imaginative design. The market was the centre of Aberdeen’s prosperity. Fittingly the cross is the finest survivor of its type in Scotland.
Public punishments often took place here, ranging from branding on the cheeks to locking drunks in the stocks. Big public proclamations were made here. All kings and queens have been proclaimed here. The cross itself is decked with a portrait gallery of the monarchs from James I to James VII.
There was a locked staircase to the roof for public announcements. In 1745 the Jacobites couldn’t find the key, so they searched out the Provost and all the councillors and paraded them all on the roof so that they could toast the Young Pretender. Provost James Morison (1744-5 and 1752-3) refused and had the wine poured over his vest. In later years the Mercat Cross even served as Post Office. It is still a lovely sandstone flower in the centre of the granite heart of the city.
Union Street
From the Castlegate we get a good view of the mile-long expanse of Union Street. This was designed in the 1790s by Charles Abercrombie as an elevated street linking the Castlegate to the extensive plain to the west. It involved wholesale clearance of mainly poor quality housing, topping some 15 feet off St Catherine’s Hill, bridging and in-filling the many wynds, and bridging the Denburn. It was an ambitious project that had to be driven through many obstacles. The main drivers were two very energetic Provosts, Thomas Leys (1797-8 and 1803-4) and James Hadden (1801-2, 1809-10, 1813-14, and 1830-31). Leys provided the vision, Hadden provided the clout.
Marischal Street
The Earl Marischal’s Lodging was a very grand quadrangular building designed to house dozens of gentlemen in style. It lay empty when the Earl and his brother James Keith, as Jabobites, earned their living abroad, in Germany. James became a famous Field-Marshal in the Prussian Army; the Earl developed lucrative business contacts. The Earl willingly sold his Lodging to the Council for £803. It was demolished to clear the way for a new road linking the Castlegate to the harbour. Marischal Street was laid 40 foot wide, the first in Aberdeen to be paved with granite setts. It is our best Georgian Street. The houses were built of granite ashlar, of the softer type from the shallow quarry, and therefore easier to work. The street was much admired by Dr Johnson on his visit in 1773. He described the granite as “beautiful”. It was a very desirable residential area; its residents included the artists Andrew Robertson and William Dyce. It also contained the Theatre Royal which opened in 1794: it is long gone, but behind it you can still find Theatre Lane.
The Bank of Scotland
This was the first public building of its age. It was built in 1801 on the neo-classical design of James Burn for the then Union Bank. It is finished with a lovely balustrade, and it set the tone for buildings in Union Street.
The Plane Stanes Well
The Planstanes were a traditional meeting place for businessmen discussing potential ideas for future contracts and deals. They would walk around the paved area that was surrounded by the fishwives from Cove, Findon and Portlethan plying their wares.
It was at the Planestanes that the future Lord Byron, as a boy from Broad Street would meet his cousin Mary Duff from the Castlegate: she was his first love. There were less romantic moments of the planestanes. In 1763 two gentlemen who had been drinking in the nearby New Inn, quarrelled and immediately duelled with pistols on the planestanes. Abernethy of Mayen shot Leith of Leith-Hall through the head. The Well dates from 1706 and reminds us of Aberdeen’s first public water supply. At each of the four corners there is a grotesque head that once acted as a water spout. The “Mannie” was originally made of wood, he is now made of lead, and he has moved around the Castlegate, spent many years in the Green and for a time was ignominiously locked away in a store. The Mannie returned home in 1972.
Exchequer Row
This was once the top residential area in the city. Its name reminds us of the mint that was set up there at the end of the 12th century by William the Lion.
The Union Buildings
This was built to the design of Archibald Simpson in 1819-22; it involves very fine smooth ashlar work shaped by the new system of hammer and puncheon (chisel) that replaced the earlier method of working with a pick. Facing the Castlegate was the Athenaeum News Room, transferred from more modest premises in Exchequer Row, it was essentially a library and reading-room owned by Alexander Brown (Provost 1822-3 and 1826-7). The idea never made money although he tried to make it work for some 20 years: he paid £12,000 for it and sold it his employee, the attendant James Blake, for £5. Blake eventually off-loaded it as a temporary court- room whilst the new Sheriff Court was being built. It then became a famous and successful restaurant under Jimmy Hay, who had learned his trade at the Royal Hotel. It remained as a fine restaurant until the 1970s. In 1973, it was gutted by fire. It currently serves as offices.
The Shiprow
This slopes and carves its way to the harbour round St Katherine’s Hill; it is probably even older than the Castlegate. For centuries it was known as Shiprow Brae. It was another area for the rich to dwell. In 1648 the residents were so fed up with the squatters and ne’er-do-wells partying in the disused Chapel at the top of the hill that they were granted permission to build a dyke round the area with a locked gate available to open to residents only. It cured the problem.
Provost Ross’s House: The Maritime Museum
This was built in 1593, probably by Andrew Jamesone, the master-mason father of George Jamesone the famous portrait-painter. It is the second oldest dwelling house in the city. It was built for Robert Watson and his wife Margaret Collie. It takes its name from its most famous resident, the ship-owning Provost John Ross of Arnage. It was rescued from ruin in 1952 and has since been rejuvenated as part of the much-loved Maritime Museum which also incorporates the 1877 Trinity Congregational Church.