ARCHITECTURE IN ABERDEEN: A SURVEY 57 
IX. 
ARCHITECTURE IN ABERDEEN: 
A SURVEY 
BY 
WILLIAM KELLY, A.R.S.A., LL.D. 
Materiats.—Medieval buildings in Aberdeen and the adjacent district 
are few and of no outstanding importance, but they are not without 
interest. The local granite, including in the term other similar rocks and 
surface boulders, has at all periods been used for rubble-walling ; but, 
except for a short period in the fifteenth century, every cementarius in 
Aberdeen was a master-mason of freestone, shaping and cutting free- 
stone only in the exercise of his craft. Sandstone, practically the only 
kind of freestone used in the locality, was quarried at a few spots in the 
county, principally near Kildrummy ; but the main supplies were brought 
to Aberdeen by sea, considerable quantities coming from Covesea in 
Morayshire. 
After the short period above referred to, when granite took the place 
of freestone, it was not until the great era of castle-building in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries that the local master-masons again used 
granite as a material for dressed work, shaping of it a group of castles, the 
most characteristic of all Aberdeenshire buildings. 
The quarrying of granite on a large scale and its adoption for the pur- 
poses of mason-craft in Aberdeen—well-nigh to the complete exclusion of 
other materials—are comparatively recent developments which began 
in the eighteenth and came to maturity only in the nineteenth century. 
Aberdeen is notable not only for its granite, but also—in Scotland at 
least—for its late-Gothic ecclesiastical woodwork, the remnant partly of 
importations from Flanders and partly of works by local carpenters, done 
in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. 
Other unusual items of architectural interest are the sculptured stone 
Sacrament-houses, which are peculiar in Great Britain to the eastern part 
of Scotland, from St. Andrews to Pluscarden in Moray. Those at 
Kinkell, Kintore and Auchindoir in Aberdeenshire, and at Deskford and 
Cullen in Banffshire, are excellent examples ; they all belong to the latest 
phase of Gothic and the first half of the sixteenth century. 
Aberdeen possesses a number of interesting examples of the architec- 
tural and decorative use of lead, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. The fleche of King’s College Chapel, the small spires of the 
_ Tolbooth and Gordon’s College, and the unique cast-lead traceried eaves- 
apron on the north transept of St. Nicholas’ Church may be noted. 
