lethargic_man | Notes from Aberdeen

On Sunday, livredor and I went for a day trip to Aberdeen. We'd been hoping to have a car, but that turned out not to be possible, so we went by train. Aberdeen is really a long way from anywhere else of size; Dundee (and Perth) are the only cities you can visit it from on a day trip^*, so we decided to make hay while the sun was shining (which it did do part of the day).

A marked feature of Scottish cities is buildings constructed of stone rather than red brick; Aberdeen in particular is known as the Granite City. Possibly to counteract the grey dullness of this building material, quite a few prominent buildings in the city centre have been built with elaborate decorative castellations and turrets:


Salvation Army Citadel	Town House

A further architectural oddity was Marischal College (now part of the University of Aberdeen), which mixed baroque ornateness with a square modern style:

However, there did not seem to be many old buildings once you got off the beaten path. Many of the buildings in the city centre seemed to be deconsecrated churches; it was a bit odd to find a building which looked like a church serving as a nightclub.

One such building we visited was the Aberdeen Maritime Museum, which told the history of Aberdeen's relationship with the sea, taking in everything from shipbuilding to oil rigs.

We also went to Provost Skene's House, a sixteenth century house lived in by Sir George Skene, a seventeenth century provost of Aberdeen. Having got very run-down in the 1930s, the house was saved from demolition and turned into a museum by the late Queen Mother. The house has been redecorated as it was in Provost Skene's time. Of particular interest was the Painted Gallery, with restored wall and ceiling decorations illustrating the life of Jesus. Although it is not known when the gallery was painted, it seemed likely the painter had never left Scotland, with the representation of Jerusalem looking very like a Scottish city (not to mention the par-for-the-course^† British-looking Levantines). However, the Roman soldiers's armour looked very Spanish. Making a political point there, perhaps? Also, the depiction of the Archangel Gabriel in the panel showing the Annunciation was decided pregnant, and (probably) female, which ought to amuse rysmiel.

On the top floor was a display of archaeological material. I was impressed to see Roman artefacts on display, for somewhere so far out of the Empire, where the Romans came so briefly. (Agricola beat the Britons at the battle of Mons Graupius near here, but was compelled for political reasons to retreat south rather than pressing home his advantage.) One room of material was presented in a most fun format -- a case of numbered items, with a list of what was in it, leaving it for you to figure out which label went with which item. (The answers were available.)

That was fun, when it was done deliberately. By contrast, the layout of exhibits in the Marischal Museum was most infuriating: each exhibit case contained items ~~pilfered~~ retrieved from around the world by an individual Victorian explorer; the items were numbered but not arranged in a numerical order. There were lots of interesting things there, though, including a few examples of art from pre-Dynastic Egypt, and a mediaeval-looking suit of chain mail from Nigeria.

Above the staircase in the entrance to the Museum (another converted church) was a plaque taken from the fifteenth-century building previously located on the site. livredor and I spent a few minutes puzzling over it, trying to make it out; it consisted of three panels, each written in a different style (what's the handwriting equivalent of "typeface"?)^§. We had to ask to find out the answer, which was:

"Thay haif said, Quhat say thay, Lat thame say"

...which was the motto of the Earls of Marischal. This struck me as the literary equivalent of a strong Glaswegian accent: You can tell it's English, and you can make out some of the words, but you can't tell what it says, and even when you have it spelled out to you, it still only half makes sense.

After that, everywhere was shutting, so we decided to return to Dundee, and resolve in future not to visit places on Sunday when Friday is an option instead. :o)

So now I can say I've done Aberdeen, for at least slightly cursory values of "done". ;^)

* You could do it from the likes of Inverness or Edinburgh, but only if you didn't mind spending half the day travelling. From Dundee it was only 80 minutes by train.

† This being Scotland, they got their priorities right and built the golf course before just about anything else, as mediaeval maps of the city demonstrate...

§ Shoulda taken a photograph. Oh well, too late now.

Disclaimer: None of these photographs are mine.