The Art Gallery and Museum at Schoolhill, built in the Italian Renaissance style of red and brown granite, contains an excellent collection of pictures, the Macdonald Hall of portraits of contemporary artists by themselves being of altogether exceptional interest and unique of its kind in Great Britain. The public library, magnificently housed, contains more than 60,000 volumes. The theatre in Guild Street is the chief seat of dramatic, as the Palace Theatre in Bridge Place is of variety entertainment. The new buildings of Marischal College fronting Broad Street, opened by King Edward VII. in 1906, form one of the most splendid examples of modern architecture in Great Britain; the architect, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, a native of Aberdeen, having adapted his material, white granite, to the design of a noble building with the originality of genius.
Churches.—Like most Scottish towns, Aberdeen is well equipped with churches, most of them of good design, but few of special interest. The East and West churches of St Nicholas, their kirkyard separated from Union Street by an Ionic façade, 14712 ft. long, built in 1830, form one continuous building, 220 ft. in length, including the Drum Aisle (the ancient burial-place of the Irvines of Drum) and the Collison Aisle, which divide them and which formed the transept of the 12th-century church of St Nicholas. The West Church was built in 1775, in the Italian style, the East originally in 1834 in the Gothic. In 1874 a fire destroyed the East Church and the old central tower with its fine peal of nine bells, one of which, Laurence or “Lowrie,” was 4 ft. in diameter at the mouth, 312 ft. high and very thick. The church was rebuilt and a massive granite tower erected over the intervening aisles at the cost of the municipality, a new peal of 36 bells, cast in Holland, being installed to commemorate the Victorian jubilee of 1887. The Roman Catholic Cathedral in Huntly Street, a Gothic building, was erected in 1859. The see of Aberdeen was first founded at Mortlach in Banffshire by Malcolm II. in 1004 to celebrate his victory there over the Danes, but in 1137 David I. transferred the bishopric to Old Aberdeen, and twenty years later the cathedral of St Machar, situated a few hundred yards from the Don, was begun. Save during the episcopate of William Elphinstone (1484–1511), the building progressed slowly. Gavin Dunbar, who followed him in 1518, was enabled to complete the structure by adding the two western spires and the southern transept. The church suffered severely at the Reformation, but is still used as the parish church. It now consists of the nave and side aisles. It is chiefly built of outlayer granite, and, though the plainest cathedral in Scotland, its stately simplicity and severe symmetry lend it unique distinction. On the flat panelled ceiling of the nave are the heraldic shields of the princes, noblemen and bishops who shared in its erection, and the great west window contains modern painted glass of excellent colour and design. The cemeteries are St Peter’s in Old Aberdeen, Trinity near the links, Nellfield at the junction of Great Western and Holburn Roads, and Allenvale, very tastefully laid out, adjoining Duthie Park.
Education.—Aberdeen University consists of King’s College in Old Aberdeen, founded by Bishop Elphinstone in 1494, and Marischal College, in Broad Street, founded in 1593 by George Keith, 5th earl Marischal, which were incorporated in 1860. Arts and divinity are taught at King’s, law, medicine and science at Marischal. The number of students exceeds 800 yearly. The buildings of both colleges are the glories of Aberdeen. King’s forms a quadrangle with interior court, two sides of which have been rebuilt, and a library wing has been added. The Crown Tower and the Chapel, the oldest parts, date from 1500. The former is surmounted by a structure about 40 ft. high, consisting of a six-sided lantern and royal crown, both sculptured, and resting on the intersections of two arched ornamental slips rising from the four corners of the top of the tower. The choir of the chapel still contains the original oak canopied stalls, miserere seats and lofty open screens in the French flamboyant style, and of unique beauty of design and execution. Their preservation was due to the enlightened energy of the principal at the time of the Reformation, who armed his folk to save the building from the barons of the Mearns after they had robbed St Machar’s of its bells and lead. Marischal College is a stately modern building, having been rebuilt in 1836–1841, and greatly extended several years later at a cost of £100,000. The additions to the buildings opened by King Edward VII. in 1906 have been already mentioned. The beautiful Mitchell Tower is so named from the benefactor (Dr Charles Mitchell) who provided the splendid graduation hall. The opening of this tower in 1895 signalized the commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the university. The University Library comprises nearly 100,000 books. A Botanic Garden was presented to the university in 1899. Aberdeen and Glasgow Universities combine to return one member to Parliament. The United Free Church Divinity Hall in Alford Place, in the Tudor Gothic style, dates from 1850. The Grammar School, founded in 1263, was removed in 1861–1863 from its old quarters in Schoolhill to a large new building, in the Scots Baronial style, off Skene Street. Robert Gordon’s College in Schoolhill was founded in 1729 by Robert Gordon of Straloch and further endowed in 1816 by Alexander Simpson of Collyhill. Originally devoted (as Gordon’s Hospital) to the instruction and maintenance of the sons of poor burgesses of guild and trade in the city, it was reorganized in 1881 as a day and night school for secondary and technical education, and has since been unusually successful. Besides a High School for Girls and numerous board schools, there are many private higher-class schools. Under the Endowments Act 1882 an educational trust was constituted which possesses a capital of £155,000. At Blairs, in Kincardineshire, five miles S.W. of Aberdeen, is St Mary’s Roman Catholic College for the training of young men intended for the priesthood.
Charities.—The Royal Infirmary, in Woolmanhill, established in 1740, rebuilt in the Grecian style in 1833–1840, and largely extended after 1887 as a memorial of Queen Victoria’s jubilee; the Royal Asylum, opened in 1800; the Female Orphan Asylum, in Albyn Place, founded in 1840; the Blind Asylum, in Huntly Street, established in 1843; the Royal Hospital for Sick Children; the Maternity Hospital, founded in 1823; the City Hospital for Infectious Diseases; the Deaf and Dumb Institution; Mitchell’s Hospital in Old Aberdeen; the East and West Poorhouses, with lunatic wards; and hospitals devoted to specialized diseases, are amongst the most notable of the charitable institutions. There are, besides, industrial schools for boys and girls and for Roman Catholic children, a Female School of Industry, the Seabank Rescue Home, Nazareth House and Orphanage, St Martha’s Home for Girls, St Margaret’s Convalescent Home and Sisterhood, House of Bethany, the Convent of the Sacred Heart and the Educational Trust School.
Parks and Open Spaces.—Duthie Park, of 50 acres, the gift of Miss Elizabeth Crombie Duthie of Ruthrieston, occupies an excellent site on the north bank of the Dee. Victoria Park (13 acres) and its extension Westburn Park (13 acres) are situated in the north-western area; farther north lies Stewart Park (11 acres), called after Sir D. Stewart, lord provost in 1893. The capacious links bordering the sea between the mouths of the two rivers are largely resorted to for open-air recreation; there is here a rifle range where a “wapinschaw,” or shooting tournament, is held annually. Part is laid out as an 18-hole golf course; a section is reserved for cricket and football; a portion has been railed off for a race-course, and a bathing-station has been erected. Union Terrace Gardens are a popular rendezvous in the heart of the city.
Statues.—In Union Terrace Gardens stands a colossal statue in bronze of Sir William Wallace, by W. G. Stevenson, R.S.A. (1888). In the same gardens are a bronze statue of Burns and Baron Marochetti’s seated figure of Prince Albert. In front of Gordon’s College is the bronze statue, by T. S. Burnett, A.R.S.A., of General Gordon (1888). At the east end of Union Street is the bronze statue of Queen Victoria, erected in 1893 by the royal tradesmen of the city. Near the Cross stands the granite statue of the 5th duke of Gordon (d. 1836). Here may also be mentioned the obelisk of Peterhead granite, 70 ft. high, erected in the square of Marischal College to the memory of Sir James
