A City's Architecture

Aberdeen as 'Designed City'

William Alvis Brogden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781409411475
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351962681
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Architecture générale

When considering the successful design of cities, the focus tends to be on famous examples such as Paris or Rome, with equally successful but smaller and more remote examples being ignored. In addition, the more diffuse patterns of settlement of the north and western parts of Europe are hardly considered at all in comparison to the tightly formed urban centres of the Mediterranean. However, the diffuse town/region is typical of our time, whatever the location. By analysing the development of a successful small city of ancient foundation which grew from a diffuse long settled and dense landscape, then demonstrated a slow growth as a tight urban form before an early adoption of the designed landscape as "town" lessons can be learned. These lessons may be useful in addressing the nature and growth of any city or city/region. The story of Aberdeen is just such an example. Not only are the materials for its long history present, its relations and concerns with the wider world are also well attested, and many of the ideas which directed or significantly impinged on the design of cities were tested there, or had their origin there. As its form accumulated and developed over such a long time Aberdeen also suggests the idea of an architecture of the city. This book examines the development and design of a city from three inescapable aspects: its location and character of the landscape; its own particular history of development; and its cultural responses to various waves of thought.

1

The Landscape

One aspect the peoples of north-west Europe and north-east Britain shared which we now find less easy to accept is the close relation between the land and the sea. We travel very much, over land, and we appreciate distance, and sense of place as elements of land. Since we do much less travelling by sea than earlier people we need to remind ourselves of its importance, and how it can be the missing ‘field’ in an understanding of Caledonia. To visit Nigg on the North Souttar of the Cromarty Firth, for example and look over towards the north coast of Aberdeenshire the difference in time implied by distance in space between the two places is quite notable and their potential closeness needs no further suggestion. This is even more compelling when considering the Pictish sculpted monolith, Shandwick Stone, on that headland, and reminding oneself of another, Suenno’s Stone across the water at Forres, or the ancient church further north from Nigg at Portmahannoch, or, of Nigg Kirk closer at hand with its own sculpted stone depicting the two St Anthonys in the Desert of Sinai (Hendersons 2004).

This difference in attitude is key to understanding the Caledonian landscape. The sea has to be our field of view to give the appropriate sense and strength of landmarks, many of which are not immediately obvious. Bennachie is an endowed landmark, but so too, are apparently others, such as the valley of the Ugie from Peterhead, including New Deer, and Aikey Brae. Coasts, inlets of rivers, valleys, headlands, landmarks, ‘places’ of importance signified by art…these are the typical major elements of landscapes. One is tempted, perhaps, to add the embellishment provided by surviving woodland in an otherwise open country, as at ancient Greek sites. That carries us away too far, to other tropes, and there is presently little evidence for it.

The significance of landscape is enhanced by monumental art works, the standing stones, singly, in groups, and forming seeming enclosures. These vary in date from 3^rd millennium BC to medieval, and there are modern ones for ‘cattle rubbing’. Their meaning is unknown but earlier ones appear to be related to burial cairns. There does seem to be a relationship between standing stones of the 1^st millennium of our era, the Pictish sculpted stones and the mediaeval clerical/political divisions of the later province which had accepted the parish, the last of the elements of Augustinian church government and Rome’s delayed but ultimately successful conquest.

1.1 John Logan, 1819 drawing of Pictish Stone, Monymusk

The earlier relationship has been easy to accept because most believe the later Caledonians had also been followers of Christ. So the relevance of these stones as markers for parish boundaries is attractive. However, large and imposing as they are these stones are not immovable. They were made using monoliths geologically associated with the recession of the last glaciers, so they cannot have place in themselves; they appear to have been moved in the five or six centuries between their making and the establishment of medieval Scotland. (The stone of Nigg was found in the nearby stream, seemingly abandoned, then brought into the kirk and given its own, independent, space. This suggests perhaps a different relationship, maybe a hostile one, between early church and the stones.) But the parishes and the stones are doubtless related in some way. As there are no Caledonian ‘churches’ to survive the idea of parishes signified by the stones would require argument to convince for which the evidence so far is insufficient (Doig 2009).

When standing stones are used to form circles, it is thought they are related in some way, as perhaps precursors, to the more highly developed, almost architectural complexity of the recumbent stone circles, ‘…one of the most distinctive categories of megalithic monuments in the British Isles’ (RCAHMS 2007). These were thought to be in some way religious sites when first written about in the 15^th century. Hector Boece (Boece 1821), an early historian and first principal of King’s College, had sought to make a connection between them and the Druids, the obvious thing to do for a late 15^th century scholar…put enigmatic local artefact into the context of history. This continued into the 17^th century, when James Garden advised John Aubrey on his Britannia. That connection began to lose support with the growth of archaeology following the foundation of the Society of Antiquaries in the 18^th century. That these sites were of great significance remains accepted by all, but the nature of that significance, moreover their siting in landscape remains to be explained.

What are they? They are open, circular spaces, and vary in size from roughly 10 metres diameter to 30; they are oriented towards the south, in that their raised platform, backed by a kind of dolmen element of three major monoliths, the ‘recumbent’ centre supported by the two vertical, is always on the south side of the earthen enclosure marked also by the more or less regular widely spaced smaller monoliths lying in the circle. A cairn is sometimes associated at the circle’s centre, occasionally impinging on the platform itself. They are sited so as to provide extensive prospect, or, more probably, as objects in landscape to be seen from afar.

Their use is unknown: the most recent account of them suggests their function as funeral pyres, as there is evidence under the cairn element of a flattened and made surface, and also evidence of fire, often repeated. The significance of the three major monoliths, arranged with great art to bring out the colour and textures of the stones, and almost always to be viewed from the south, that is, outside the enclosure, is suggested to be, as it were, a closed doorway between the act of cremation and those still alive. Whatever the use, generally or particularly, the ‘numinous’ quality of both monument and site remains. The evidence of fire may point also to either bonfires at a later time or bonfires as perhaps the primary reason for being, that is, more to light, or to signal, than to transform corpse to ash. It has to be pointed out also that, as an alternative to enclosed spaces for early Christian fellowship these stone circles would make a very serviceable, even compelling ‘kirk’, but this has yet to be proposed by any archaeologist. Nearly forty of these monuments survive near Aberdeen, and many others are known to have perished. They were sited not only prominently, but on the best land for cultivation. Once their ceremonial use had faded they would clearly be at risk from harder headed farmers. As they are exceptionally old (these monuments date from the third millennium BC) it is more a marvel that any survive at all, and that fact reinforces the suspicion that they have been reused by the community in relatively recent times.

The circular form for buildings with roofs appears universal in early societies, almost to the point of being natural. Even though there were large hall-type buildings (Balbridie, above) in Aberdeenshire, the circular form seems preferred, and its type characteristics can be detected even in quite modern vernacular buildings into the 19^th century. At Druidstone near Premnay is a fragmentary example of individual stones, recumbent circle, burial mounds and related hut circles. The design of such a proto-village is a loose assembly of identical forms of varying size distant from its neighbours, roughly, by two to three times its diameter. Similar patterns can be found in other early societies. These groupings, and individual buildings, appear to have been a common rounded almost always circular type. These ‘round houses’ whether for habitation, storage, or other use were made from both timber and stone, with, doubtless a light roof under thatch (Murrays 2010).

There is aerial photographic evidence of hundreds of these surviving in Aberdeenshire. These appear to date from the 1^st millennium BC into the 1^st millennium AD. They vary between three and 16 meters, with most seven to 11 meters diameter with walls one to three meters in thickness. Of those that have been excavated are indications of post holes inside. At Greenbogs near Monymusk are more oval houses, one with a centre square of three meters defined by posts, with a further ring of posts at one metre intervals. The larger diameters, especially over 20 meters of which there are many, some up to 90 meters diameter, suggest enclosures containing one, two or many houses. No brochs have been identified in Aberdeenshire. Souterrains are common however, and relate to round houses here as they do to brochs on Orkney or Shetland. These very well built but mysterious buildings are said to be for storage, perhaps for communication also, but it is difficult to imagine just how they could be used, and why they were built.

Somewhat easier for us to comprehend are the fortified places of Aberdeenshire. Three of these are very prominent indeed, and they appear in early history. Bennachie itself bears evidence of its fortification at the Mither Tap, and also possessed a citadel among the outcrop of great stones. Almost as prominent is the fort of Tap o’ Noth northwest in Strathbogie. Here the summit of a conical great hill was levelled and fortified, and at some time parts of its fortifications were fused by fire, vitrified. Both these fortifications are small in terms of providing refuge, but their potency as symbol, and military power is manifest. They are clearly ancient but specific dating has not been possible thus far. However, most recent investigation reports that these forts were destroyed in the latter centuries of the 1^st millennium BC, and they were subsequently quarried to build castles in the Middle Ages. Tacitus (Tacitus 98), the 1^st century Roman historian, wrote in his biography of Agricola of the great battle of Mons Graupius, which is associated with Bennachie and Tap O’ Noth, and gave the name to the Grampian Hills. The remains of a camp nearby at Logie Durno have been identified as Agricola’s base camp for his famous confrontation, and defeat of Calcagus.

The third major fortress is Dunottar, which has continued its active role into modern times. Dunottar is fortified by its site on rocky prominences technically peninsular but really unassailable by sea or land. It is an important place in histories of post-Roman Britain (Bede 731) and was a major stronghold of Pictland. There are also a number of smaller fortified places, less fearsome, more accessible, and offering potential for greater refuge, and some of these such as Barra (east of Inverurie) may have served also in a sense as towns, and might therefore be associated with the larger enclosures of round houses. However, no settlement sustained into modern times confirms such an idea. Further excavations may well provide that confirmation. Without that we can be no more precise about any disposition within such a settlement, other than the scant evidence such as Druidstone supplies.

1.2 Peterculter with Culter House and Grounds in the centre, and the site of the Roman Marching Camp to the left at Oldtown

Apart from Agricola’s base camp north of Inverurie, there is other evidence of Roman presence in Aberdeenshire. For example, Normandykes lies west of the settlement of Oldtown, just outside the present city boundaries on the north bank of the Dee, and is what remains of one of the marching camps associated with punitive forays into Caledonia from the secure frontiers further south. It appears to belong to the earliest of these, Agricola’s decisive campaign for Domitian of 82–3 AD (Tacitus). Normandykes is related to others of these camps a day’s march away such as Raedykes near Stonehaven, and at Kintore which has been recently investigated. Some 180 field ovens scattered throughout the site have been identified and 60 rubbish dumps. These investigations show occupation at various dates between 330 and 610 AD. Normandykes has not yet been excavated (RCAHMS 98, 9–10). It occupies a ridge site above the Dee and is an orthogonally laid out rectangle of about 1300 meters, east-west, by 70 meters, that is, comparable to the size, shape and siting of the 1^st New Town of Edinburgh.

Retrieving a landscape of such antiquity is bound to be sketchy and incomplete or even problematic. There is much we would wish to know. But this much is clear. Aberdeenshire has been part of a civilization for at least the two millennia before and since Christ, and apart from our inability to ‘speak’ with the Picts, without significant breaks. It still presents the character of an open landscape with an architecture which ranges through type from sophisticated monument, to the widespread and ordinary in which we can discern the features common in western culture prior to architecture. This landscape is one of meaning, or meanings, which have been long recognized, if not elucidated. The last two millennia of the province’s civilization sees the creation and growth of Aberdeen from one of upwards of a hundred other urban clusters into the complex city it presents today, and that growth and development has been, and remains, part of the long term development of the landscape.

The landscape specific to Aberdeen is separated from the Bennachie prominent plain of the province by Tyrebagger Hill which seems to embrace the current city on the west side, as the broad expanse of Aberdeen Bay forms its east side, from the headland at the mouth of the Dee northwards to Peterhead (Roy 2008). The south side is formed by The Mounth which ends in cliffs south of Nigg Bay. Within that are the Dee, the Don and the Denburn, and many lesser streams. The numerous low hills do not detract from an impression of a large crescent shaped plain sloping to the east. The heart of the city, and for a long time the town proper, lies on Schoolhill, St Katharine’s Hill, Castle Hill, and Porthill, but there were many other places which might have been the city’s centre, and they retained their territorial distinction into the 20^th century, and can still be recognized. This appears to be characteristic of Aberdeenshire as a whole at the turn of the 1^st millennium AD; in other words it was consistently settled by groups of towns, townships, and hamlets.

Thus 20 potential towns may be said to represent types suggested by their mature forms in the 18^th century. There are three kirk towns, Dyce, Aberdon, and the Evens quarter of Aberdeen; roadside describes three others Hardwierd, Cuparston, and the Fittie quarter of Aberdeen, which could also count amongst the coastal types with Torry and Dee Village. There are three milltowns, Culter, Gilcomston and Woodside. There are three planned towns, the Odds quarter of the city, Woodside and ‘new’ Aberdon. Finally there are a group of five Y-types, a sufficiently complex form to be a town, and to support growth: these are: The Green quarter of the city, Old Aberdeen (Aberdon plus ‘new’ Aberdon), Hardgate, Ruthrieston, and Gilcomston South.

Apart from the types supporting specific functions there are towns elsewhere in Aberdeenshire where these types have all grown up, as it were, and which support populations up the 20,000 or thereby, comparable to the population of Aberdeen when it began to be expanded. Inverurie and Kintore are Y-types; Kincardine O’ Neil is a roadside type; Stonehaven is coastal, and with its new town, modern planned; and Oldmeldrum is planned also, but rather earlier.

We have an established European culture, its own potential transition from ancient folk architecture of the round houses (already with hints of a move to rectangular forms), and evidence of a beginning stone built infrastructure in the souterrains. To this the medieval period, in Aberdeenshire as elsewhere in these islands and the continent, saw the coalescence of kingdoms such as Pictland into larger ones, and after the Conqueror under Norman influence. There are estates, with parishes, which give the landscape forms which are still with us, however much they were likely simply transitions from earlier Pictish modes. And there are towns. These are largely contemporary with kings, knights, castles, monks, parishes and bishops. Some, such as Aberdeen, appear to be somewhat earlier, but as ‘system’ towns begin to thrive from the 11^th century and many more are established after that time.

1.3 Stephen Switzer, part of a Forest or Rural Garden

We have no surviving evidence of the forms of agriculture from earlier times. It is assumed that the system in place until the 18^th century was itself the pattern which had developed without revolution over the millennia. This was based on the rig, or run-rig, and both are related to the burg...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• A Note on Sources
• Prologue
• 1 The Landscape
• 2 The Legacy of the Mediaeval Town
• 3 Early Improvements
• 4 The Designed City
• 5 From Classic to Caledonian
• 6 Architecture for Everyman
• 7 Granite City
• 8 Learning from the City
• Bibliography
• Illustration Credits
• Index