The Doric Columns |
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Schoolhill
Wordies Pend can be seen centre left of lower School Hill with a trademark trail of fresh Horse Manure
This rather plain building which stood in Schoolhill and was demolished about 1882-3 was the old Grammar School. It was closed as a school in 1863 when the new school in Skene Street was opened. The Grammar School seems to date back to the 13th century with successive buildings on this site. Pupils were taught Latin, Greek and English grammar with the aim of preparing them for entry to university. One of the more famous pupils here was Lord Byron, who attended from the age of 7 in 1795 for 4 years. The site is now partly occupied by buildings belonging to the The Robert Gordon University Aberdeen Grammar School, sited on the edge of the Denburn, before the installation of its illuminating tower clock (popularly known at one time as "the Grammar moon"). The exact date of Aberdeen Grammar School's foundation is unknown, but the school has existed for at least 550 years. The first documentary reference to the town Grammar School occurs in the Burgh Records for the year 1418, when the Provost and the Council nominated John Homyll as 'Master of the Schools', in place of Andrew of Chivas, deceased, and the Chancellors of the Cathedral confirmed his appointment.
James Dun's House It is a beautiful building on Schoolhill that was a popular museum and gallery with changing exhibitions but in 2001 was converted into a hairdresser and cafe. It was built in 1769 and was owned by James Dun who was the Rector of Aberdeen Grammar School which used to be located on Schoolhill before being moved in the 19th century.
Description:
Notes:
John
Alexander Ogg Allan, Architect Wordie's Horses
The old and narrower Schoolhill cobbled street and Tenements and shops including Jamesone's Turreted House soon to be demolished in order to widen the thoroughfare. In the distance is the Spire of the Triple Kirks. Wordie & Co.'s premises has a sign indicating his association with the Caledonian and North of Scotland Railways. Hand and single axle Horse Carts are present and ladders up to houses on the south side in front of the Mither Kirk. Alexander Smith's Shop is adjacent to Wordie's Pend leading to his stable block “workin’ as hard as a'en a Wordie’s horses” – (working as hard as one of Wordie’s horses). in days gone by, Mr. Wordie' owned the carts and horses that worked at the Harbour. His business was located off Harriet Street, where the Bon Accord Centre (a large shopping centre) now stands. She said that every morning, Wordie’s horses left to go down Market Street to the Harbour, and every evening, up they came again at the end of their long day of hauling and carting. Wordie’s is long gone, but it lives on in the expression “working as hard as one of Wordie’s horses” and also in the name of the Ale House at 16 Schoolhill, just around the corner from where Wordie’s used to be._ who's there - 'Ina' - Ina who - 'Ina Wordie's Horses'
Twenty Horses in a Row -
Everyone of Wordie &
Co. The Railway was now spreading its tentacles all over Scotland, and wherever the railway went, William Wordie was sure to go. In 1851 he became agent for the Caledonian Railway and then secured a contract for the Scottish Central Railway. William Wordie had fixed his wagon to a star in orbit. But on 9th October, 1874, his industrious life came to an end at his Lenzie home. He died leaving a family of seven – five daughters and two sons, John and Peter, who took over the business and still found time to move the family into more spacious accommodation, at Millersneuk House, in Lenzie. All things must end, however, and the proud slogan – "You'll find Wordie & Co. wherever you go" – was soon consigned to history. In 1945, the Government passed the Road Traffic Act, and Wordie & Co became part of the now nationalised British Road Services.
The newer No.s 8-26 Schoolhill make a significant contribution to the run of buildings that make up the stretch of Upperkirkgate and Schoolhill. In its raised position towards the top of the hill, it overlooks the St Nicholas Kirk Burial ground. Formerly known as the `Wordie Buildings´, 8-26 Schoolhill was designed by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie soon after the completion of his Aberdeen Art Gallery and associated buildings also situated on Schoolhill. Mackenzie is one of Classical Aberdeen´s most prominent Architects, responsible for a number of its most celebrated buildings included the Neo-Gothic additions to Marischal College. The Baronial details at Nos 8-26 are uncommon among Mackenzie´s output, while there are few Baronial buildings within central Aberdeen in general. The design of the building appears partly in the manner of Edinburgh´s Cockburn Street while following the style of the houses that occupied Schoolhill in earlier times. A central pend once located below the crowstepped gable at ground floor now houses a pub infill named the `Wordie Alehouse´ in acknowledgement of the Building's origins.
Description:
The Old Manse of St Nicholas, Schoolhill, Aberdeen. In 1620, the house became the residence of George Jamesone, the celebrated portrait painter. By the 1880s it had became a common Lodging House and it was demolished in the late 1880s and its site is now commemorated by a plaque. This building was erected as a Manse or a Residence for the Minister of St Nicholas' Church, but the date of erection cannot be satisfactorily ascertained. On the 2 inner wings is the date 1729 but the body of the house appears to have been erected before that date. It was no longer used as a manse but was let off into several tenements 1895. On the site now occupied by Nos 16-26 School Hill, Aberdeen, was a Temple Tenement of St John, formerly George Jameson's House.
They were demolished in 1884-85 as part of a street widening scheme and the present wall and railing now stands in their place. On the other side of Schoolhill could be seen the roof and turrets of George Jamesone's House, demolished in 1886. St Nicholas Churchyard had a row of houses which stood between it and Schoolhill. These houses were demolished around 1884 as part of an improvement scheme to widen Schoolhill - named after the Old Grammar School which stood nearby. A dwarf wall with ornamental railings was erected in place of these buildings and a Porter's Lodge was removed from Robert Gordon's College to form a lodge for the Sexton at the entrance to the churchyard. Note the mortar and pestle indicating a Apothecary or Chemist Shop on the left corner.
In illustrations and photos it appears as if it had a T or L shaped tower, but the form of the house is uncertain. It had a `projecting turret with a pair of corbelled, angle round, moulded window surrounds and strong courses. Corbelled stair turrets connected the main block and the west re-entrant angle wide-arched entrance gave access to a pend through the lower eastern range'. It had a projecting turret with distinctive pair of corbelled angle round, moulded window surrounds and strong courses. A corbelled stair turret adjoined the main block in the west re-entrant angle wide arched entrance gave access to a pend through the lower more elaborate eastern range'. An illustration by Billings shows the turrets with tapering roofs and some repairs to the building but the turrets were taken off and roof finished. It has been claimed as a Manse of St. Nicholas, the Bishop's Palace, the residence of Mary Queen of Scots and the prison of Samuel Rutherford but there is no evidence to suggest that this house was used for these purposes. It was taken down at a time when slum clearance and redevelopment was taking place in the City centre in general. The removal of this venerable and much loved structure provoked much hostility and anger at the time. Demolished in c. 1885
Judging by the throngs of men stood here it makes one wonder what the purpose of the adjoining shop was - a convenient meeting place, Lodging House or a labour exchange?
School Hill Cotton Factory
Thorn gives a most affecting picture of the lives and thoughts of these men, many of them, strong with native intellect and passion, condemned to a life of unending servitude and degradation, too ragged to dare to enter a church, even if they wished, and getting their only glimpse of nature in the garden of Gordon's Hospital, which was open on the Sunday holiday, while the whiskey shop gave them their only taste of joy and exhilaration; and yet who had a native feeling for poetry, repeating the verses of Burns and particularly of Tannahill, their brother weaver, as they tended their looms, and applauding the poets and singers in their own ranks, whose rude verses expressed their feelings or appealed to their sympathies in the gatherings in the taprooms. The moral influences of such a life, where 300/400 men and women were herded together in common workrooms was also very bad, and many a young girl dated her ruin in life, bringing additional desolateness to the miserable home, from the promiscuous association, and being barred out into the streets with a heavy fine for failing to be at the factory door at its opening in the early morning. How virtue, morality, or any of the decency and self-respect of humanity could exist at all in such a life may be considered a marvel, and it is a proof of the inherent strength of the Scottish character and its inherited virtues that these factories were not greater plague spots than they actually were, and that honest lives and human affections flourished at all. In a poem, entitled Whisperings to the Unwashed, in the fiercely declamatory style of the Corn Law Rhymer, Thorn draws a grim picture of the awakening of the weavers at the call of the Town Drum, used for that purpose in the smaller Burghs, at 6 o'clock in the bleak and dark Northern mornings.
Rubadub, rubadub, row-dow-dow ! Gordon, Barron, & Co. cotton spinners and manufacturers, Woodside - Office, 20, Belmont Street
Water was taken into the Medieval Town by a lead pipe following the Denburn to the Well of Spa. There it left the course of the burn and went up by Black's Buildings and along Schoolhill. At the east end of Schoolhill, on the south side of the street, it supplied a stone cistern well. Here the main pipe divided into 2 branches. One going south supplied a cistern well in Netherkirkgate at the head of Carnegie's Brae, opposite the end of Flourmill Lane. This well is shown in "Scotia Depicta" Descending Carnegie's Brae, the pipe supplied a Well in the Green, shown on Taylor's Map, 1773, and another at the Shore. The other branch ascended Upperkirkgate, and supplied a Well in the Gallowgate near Mars's Castle and another in Broad Street in front of Greyfriars Church, where a reservoir or Water House was afterwards erected. There was another Well near the south end of Broad Street, east side, and a large cistern well in Castlegate. (The Mannie)
Blackfriar's The place of the Blackfriars then consisted of 3 portions, namely, the Monastery and Church [with its Cemetery] and other subsidiary buildings - Barn, Kiln, and Pigeon-house, (Dovecote) with garden and orchard; an incroft lying to the west of the Monastery and included within the same walls; and the yard croft, lying between the wall on the south and the Loch on the north.
The Duke of Cumberland, while on his march to Culloden, stayed, from 25th February to 8th March, at a large house called Sillerton, said to be at the end of Aberdeen at that time. This house Cumberland fortified strongly for the purpose of a magazine and hospital for his sick and wounded soldiers. At the same time he left a suffioient force to- defend it against enemies, of whom Glenbucket's followers are specially mentioned. Sillerton House was the Gordons Hospital and is a corruption of Silvertown Shirras
Laing, 40-50 Schoolhill/Harriet Street 1978 Schoolhill
and Harriet Street,
Buildings for
Mitchell & Muil Ltd., Bakers..
The Denburn ran as an open burn throughout this area area of town with bleaching greens next to it, until the railway was constructed in 1865-7, when the burn was covered over and the sun bleaching method surpassed. In the late 1870's, Union Terrace Gardens was laid out next to the railway, and it was sometimes referred to as the 'Trainie Park'. The old bandstand has long since been removed. The iron footbridge on granite supports which allowed access across the gardens from Schoolhill to Union Terrace was replaced by Schoolhill Viaduct in 1886/7 but sections still survive in the Duthie Park.
Duncan Fraser, drapers, Schoolhill. had a cash Pneumatic tube system. Closed around 1960s. Duncan Fraser was 152nd Lord Provost of Aberdeen c. 1949. In 1889, Schoolhill Viaduct was built along with Schoolhill Station. At that time the station was part of the Great North of Scotland Railway Company. These street level offices and station stood in splendid isolation a few 100 yards along from His Majesty's Theatre. The station, besides acting as a left luggage office also acted as a waiting room for the GNSR Bus Services to the outlying villages of Aberdeenshire. To the left of the entrance can be noted a clock which indicated the time of the next train to Dyce. The station was closed in 1937 and for several years was a tea room. The building was finally demolished in 1977.
The station was also used as a bus terminus for the Great North of Scotland Railway bus service. The station restaurant survived until the 1970's, and the station was demolished in 1973. Current Status: The railway is now single track at this point. Traces of building remains in the car park beside the theatre. The was indeed a Tearoom in my time and looked like a a complete folly as a freestanding structure with a footbridge to the Viaduct as its original use had long since faded from memory. |
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