Inspecting the Castle Spectre

No's 4-5 Mackie Place  c. 1880s - image copyright, Ron Winram

No's 4-5 Mackie Place 2011 - image copyright FJB

Mackie Place, you ask, far's that?  An anonymous little cul-de-sac off Skene Street which got its name from hide-skinner Robert Mackie, who owned the land and rented it out during the late 1700s, making him a 'bunnet laird', i.e. a minor landlord.  He was friends with John Jack, manufacturer who owned the land which was named Jack's Brae and Hardweird.

Mackie Place is odd though, if not for its eccentric architecture, then for its bohemian former residents!

Maybe it was because the Denburn flowed freely through the area that they believed they were a little enclave of free thinkers, but the folk who lived in 'The Galleries', no. 6, Mackie Place, which is now no more, certainly liked to have fun both intellectually and and childishly.

The White House - Mackie Place

G.M. Fraser in his Aberdeen Place Names suggests that 'Galleries' is the corruption of the Gaelic for 'the hollow of the flowing water' which indeed it is, and since the Celts more often than not named places for their topographic description, it is very likely this is true.  Enter the Forbes family (probably pronounced 'For-bez'), a gang of clever, but eccentric, and probably Romantic Edwardians who lived in the Galleries.  They had their own printing press called The Mackie Place Company, which produced a monthly periodical for twelve years called The Castle Spectre.

Why this name? One, the Forbes' house was harled, thus it shone white in sun and moon light, and perhaps gave rise to the name of another neighbouring street 'Whitehouse Street' as it was so prominent at the time, and was rumoured to be haunted.  Standing five storeys tall with its curious 'ogee' or 's' shaped gable, which is reflected in the smaller building which are the remaining properties no.'s 4 and 5 Mackie Place, it's no wonder local residents thought it a tad spooky!

Two - 18th century Gothic novelist, Matthew Lewis had written a play called The Castle Spectre in 1796.  Although more famous for his horror novel The Monk, the play wasn't well-received.  Literary Gothic, which includes the likes of Frankenstein and Dracula was like marmite, you either loved it or hated it!  The Spectre in question is the ghost of the castle heiress's murdered mother - the girl, Lady Angela, is being held captive and forced into marrying her uncle (no concern about incest then?), while her boyfriend, Sir Osmond is trying to attack the castle and free her, meanwhile, the ghostly mother is hanging about trying to protect her daughter.  Fantastically melodramatic plot!  No wonder Jane Austen thought she'd have a go at a pastiche of the Gothic style in her spoof novel Northanger Abbey.

The Forbes family would probably have been fans of Mr 'Monk' Lewis, as the stories, poems and epigrams were perhaps of that romanticised, we might say mawkish type.  If you want to check, G. M. Fraser, who was the city librarian, mentions that the collected volume of the Spectre is in the Central Library archives!!

The family and their literary friends, many quite young children, would enjoy themselves on dark nights by dressing in sheets, sticking scary-faced neep lanterns with candles therein along the walls and in the hedges, and generally jumping oot at passers by with loud whoops and wails like the chorus of the damned.  They were only keeping up the reputation of the White House after all.  The Forbes' obviously were tenants of Robert Mackie as Ron Winram mentions in Walkin the Mat that the town watchman daurna gaun further than the foot of Jack's Brae on nightly duties - the 'Night Watch' was the beginning of Aberdeen City's police force and began in 1818, helping us to date the activities of the inhabitants of The Galleries.

To get back to the houses - both the Galleries and no.'s 4-5 were built after 1760, and apparently bore a strong similarity with Raeden House which used to stand near Westburn Road (before the road was built and it was Midstocket!).  There were no houses round about in those days - Skene Place wasn't built, either was Esslemont Avenue, you were practically in the countryside if you lived there, and once the Bridewell or West Prison was built in nearby Rose Street, it wasn't somewhere to be wandering at night for fear of escapees!  The peaceful wee hideyhole on the Denburn would still have been a haven of luxury for the literary set of the White House.

So if you go walking along towards the Grammar School, pass in front of Skene Place, the large block of 19th century tenements, and look for the little stone dyke, turn down and cross the bridge into a time warp of the days when the Prince Regent was running Britain, the mad old King George was at his last, and a set of intellectuals could find their verses quite happily received by others lovers of poetry and prose.

I finish with a verse from Miss Forbes, the daughter of the family:

 Beneath two giant willows that stand before our door
 The Denburn runs so sweetly with its green and silvery shore
 But sometimes it is flooded and then then torrent's roar
 Is like the sound near Buffaloe where hearing is no more
 When down comes sticks and turnips and tumbles down the wall
 Oh! what a hurry scurry when you think the bridge will fall!

Built on Seven Hills

starring Andy Rudgley - photo by Angela Matthew

... Rome was, so was Edinburgh, and indeed, our own Granite City was... sort of.

Aberdeen's origins stretch back into the post-Ice Age era when the hunter-gatherer peoples chased the deer, wild boar and wild cow (breed called an Auroch) around the hill which would later be known as 'Gillecoaim's Toun'.  So from 8000 BC to early medieval times, approx 12th century, there were people living in the Gilcomston area, so you have the first hill - GILCOMSTON MOTTE for want of a better name, its own epithet lost in the mists of time.

Gillecoaim was a Celtic-speaking chieftain (P-Celtic, closer to Welsh than Gaelic) who bore witness to the charter given by King David I of Scotland to the monks of Deer Monastery in Aberdeenshire, which was dated 1152.  He and his neighbour Ruaraidh, who was the local 'mormaer' or sheriff of Mar, both signed their consent to the king's charter written in Latin.  Ruaraidh is recalled in 'Ruthrieston' today.

David's great-grandson, Alexander II who was king from 1214-49, granted his royal dwelling near what had been Gillecoaim's 'motte' (the word for a mound or mount - hence we have Mount Street which recalled the hill and its fort which he would have inhabited) to the Dominican Friars.  That property was on ST. JOHN'S HILL - better known to us as WOOLMANHILL, because the wool merchants and sheep farmers did their dealings there.  St John's Hill probably marked the edge of St John's Croft, the arable property belonging to the Knights Templar who lived in Castlegate (Hill number 2 and counting!).

The Dominicans were popular because they were known as educators, or 'the teaching friars'.  They set up a sang school to teach their local choristers to sing, and also have a basic knowledge of reading and writing so they could read the music and words!  This school was later named a grammar school after the Reformation of 1560, which provided education for local boys - this stood at the front of where Robert Gordon's College stands today on SCHOOLHILL (Hill number 3).

Dominating the later medieval landscape of Aberdeen was ST KATHERINE'S HILL, where the Constable of Aberdeen Castle, John Kennedy of Kermuck endowed the Order of St Katherine of Siena, a nunnery and chapel in 1242.  The hill was heavily populated right through until modern times (that was Hill 4).

The Castle, which Alexander III had built, the son of Alexander II, from approximately 1249, was also constructed on a hill, CASTLEHILL, funnily enough!  It may have been called Watchtower or Watchman's hill previous to the building of this first stone castle, as there is mention of towers where locals could watch for Viking attacks from the sea (Hill 5).

Behind the Castlehill was the HEADING HILL - where traitors where beheaded using a nasty local invention called 'The Maiden', a form of guillotine.  Witches were burned, thieves were strangled and miscreants done to death in the valley between the two hills. (That's the top bit of Virginia Street if you're wondering - which carries the dual carriageway down to the harbour)  If you were lucky, you might just be hanged on the GALLOWHILL which is near Trinity Cemetery today. (Hills 6 and 7)

When Union Street was built from 1800 onwards, these hills had to be levelled off at various points to carry the piers which would in turn carry the road, much like a suspension bridge does.  It's much less obvious now that our city was built on seven hills, but as you can see, all of the areas I've mentioned have housing, business properties or roads on them today.  St Katherine's Hill is probably the saddest loss as the gentle slope up Shiprow hardly gives an idea of its height - Market Street might better help you imagine it tower over the Mither Kirk of St Nicholas!

Oh, there were another two hills - WINDMILL HILL which was at the upper side of Windmill Brae where a working mill stood from the late 1600s until the late 1800s, and Crown Terrace Baptist Church stands on the site today and PORTHILL which was where the Gallowgate Port or Gate stood... so we've even got two more hills than the great monolith that was Rome!

So - here we are again, with dates:

1. GILLECOAIM'S MOTTE
(South Mount Street - dates from at least 12th century)
2. WOOLMANHILL/ ST. JOHN'S HILL (Woolmanhill, Skene Square - dates from at least the Neolithic period 4000BC onwards)
3. SCHOOLHILL (Schoolhill, Blackfriars' Street - from 13th century)
4. ST. KATHERINE'S HILL (Adelphi - from 13th century)
5. CASTLEHILL (Castlehill - from 12th century)
6. HEADING HILL (Hanover Street - from 12th century)

and our three candidates for no. 7:

• GALLOWHILL (Park Street - from 15th century to 18th) However, the Gallows was outside the city boundary, so perhaps it doesn't count for the medieval one) 
• PORTHILL (Gallowgate/ Seamount Court/ Porthill Flats - 15th century until present) Definitely INside city boundary.
• WINDMILL HILL (Windmill Lane/ Crown Terrace - as a mill 17th - 19th century) Land probably belonged to the monastery after it belonged to the Royal family)

Porthill is thus probably best to be described as hill number 7 being inside the medieval boundary and marking the way to the gallows.

Welcome to QI Aberdeen!

Although we don't have our own Stephen Fry, we will try and furnish our readers with lots of 'quite interesting' facts and fictions about the Granite City.

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best wishes
QIA