ARCHITECTURE IN ABERDEEN: A SURVEY 65 
intact. About the same time two manses for professors were built of 
granite, in College Bounds. ‘These works and the older houses in Maris- 
chal Street which was formed in 1767 mark the beginnings of modern 
granite masonry in Aberdeen. 
Duff House and Haddo House, works by William Adam of Maryburgh, 
father of Robert Adam, were carried out in the Renaissance tradition, 
with freestone dressings; Duff House especially may be considered 
extraneous. Cairness House in Buchan, built of granite towards the end 
of the century (1799) from designs by James Playfair, a London Scot, 
and said (c.1810) by Dr. Skene Keith to be ‘ the largest and the best house 
belonging to any private gentleman in the county,’ shows originality and 
much refinement, with some not unpleasant touches of eccentricity; Cairness 
seems to have had some effect on the development of Classic in the North. 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.—In Aberdeen itself, the Bank on the south 
side of Castle Street (1801) was designed by James Burn of Haddington, 
and built of granite in the Classic style of which Chambers was the last 
great exponent. 
The building of Union Bridge over the Denburn, originally entirely a 
granite structure which was finished c. 1805, opened the way to the 
expansion of Aberdeen westwards. The granite house of Mr. Milne of 
Crimonmogate—now the Royal Northern Club—was the first to be built 
west of the bridge and the earliest architectural work of John Smith 
(1781-1852). 
That Aberdeen during the course of the nineteenth century came to 
be familiarly known as ‘the Granite City’ is owing, firstly, to the enter- 
prise of those who quarried the material, of whom John Gibb, civil 
engineer and quarrymaster, was chief ; and secondly, to two architect 
sons of Aberdeen, the earliest regular practitioners of architecture resident 
in Aberdeen—John Smith, already mentioned, and Archibald Simpson 
(1790-1847), whose taste, skill and scholarship in the adaptation of Classic 
forms (the vogue of their time was Grecian) to modern uses, in buildings 
carried out in hard crystalline granite, was as remarkable as their success 
in training a school of craftsmen unrivalled for the accuracy and beauty 
of their work. Among John Smith’s works were the North Church in 
King Street (1830) ; the screen to St. Nicholas’ Churchyard in Union 
Street (1830), and Prof. Hamilton’s monument, adjacent (1833); and 
‘The Town’s Schools ’ in Little Belmont Street (1841). Among Archi- 
bald Simpson’s works were the Assembly Rooms (1820), now the front 
part of the Music Hall Buildings ; the older part of the Royal Infirmary 
(1838) ; the North of Scotland Bank in Castle Street (1842); and the 
Market in Market Street (1842). 
‘Gothic’ in the hands of these pioneers of modern granite building 
fared but poorly. It has happened, however, that Simpson’s Marischal 
College (1838-42) lies behind the fagade of the New Buildings by 
Alexander Marshall Mackenzie (1848-1933), whose handling of Kemnay 
granite in “ Perpendicular Gothic ’ is as attractive as the ‘ Gothic’ of a 
hundred years ago is dull. 
The architecture of Aberdeen between then and now must speak for 
itself, 
E 
