Well, well, well!

Three holes in the ground!  Yes, the standard retort to repeating the word 'well'.  But in this case, the QI elves of Aberdeen refer to the shifting site of the once beautiful Spa Well, praised by none less than the king's physician, Dr Gilbert Skene in his 1580 pamphlet "Ane Brief Descriptioun of the Qualiteis and Effectis of the Well of the Woman Hill" (a later facsimile of this work dated 1884 claims that it is not the work of Dr Skene, but someone with only second-hand knowledge of the well), and recognised for its curative qualities as a source of iron mineral salts or 'chalybeate' water.

Spa Street today - the well would have been on the left, just where the cyclist is crossing

The Well of Spa was situated where the entrance to the Upper Denburn car park is now.  The car park forms the lower part of the Denburn Health Centre which was built in the early 1970s, cutting off Jack's Brae and Hardweird from the rest of the Gilcomston area.  Good water sources were difficult to come by in medieval times - too many folk were washing their clothes in the great Loch of Aberdeen - which covered a large area from Loch St near Aberdeen College to Maberley St where the remains of Richards' Mill stands today - and causing it to become 'filthy and defilet' as a 17th century report claimed.  The Spa Well represented the main public water source for the Denburn and Gilcomston area.

Spring wells were made accessible to the public by the construction of well-houses, which usually contained a spout or tap and cups to ease drinking from.  Water, nicknamed Adam's Wine by some, was so vital in an age where a settled population had forgotten all their Neolithic and Mesolithic ancestors knew about cleanliness and good ground.  What had filtered through was a continuing superstitious veneration of water, long after the Reformation had supposedly done away with 'Popish' fancies, and many 'Holy Wells' still existed.  The Holy Wells of Catholic Scotland may also have derived from the magically-endowed waters of wells and springs that Pagan Celts, Picts and Neolithic folk would have worshipped - it's what you call spiritual archaeology!  Even the name of the River Dee recalls both the Latin word for a goddess - Dea, indicating the Romans worshipped water and river spirits also.

So why is there a link between water worship and the Spa Well?

The spirits or angels who inhabited or blessed the wells and water courses were relied upon for healing.  The Pool of Bethesda, or Five Porched Pool mentioned in John's Gospel carried a legend that an angel touched the water at a certain time and the first to enter the pool would  be cured of whatever ailment from which they suffered.  It is no surprise then that we read of the Spa Well's earliest description (1615) as having "a long wide stone which conveyed the waters from the spring, with the portraiture of six Apostles hewn upon either side thereof."

This 12th century carving of the Apostles may provide some idea as to the design of the Spa Well's original housing

Also, the mineral qualities of the spring water had been recognised as a curative measure for a number of conditions in medieval times which physicians found hard to treat otherwise.  Dudley North found this to be the case with the chalybeate spring at Tunbridge Wells, and his doctor claimed that Baron North's discovery meant a cure for the following:

• colic
• the melancholy
• the vapours
• flat worms in the belly
• clammy humours
• 'over-moist brain'

Queen Victoria would later discover the pleasure of Tunbridge Wells, and bestow upon it regal approval, giving the citizens the right to call it Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Other physicians claimed it cured hysteria.

George Jameson - self portrait 1642 (Scot. Nat. Gall)

Our Spa well cured a certain George Jameson of bladder stones, much to his relief and delight, one would imagine!  George was the son of Aberdeen master mason, Andrew Jameson; he himself was known as the Scottish Van Dyck, being one of this country's earliest portrait painters.  His only surviving child, Mary, would turn out to be as skilled with a needle and thread as her dad was with a paintbrush, or her grandfather with a hammer and chisel - her tapestry work can be seen on display in St. Nicholas Kirk to this day.



George's delight at being cured resulted in him requesting of the council the opportunity to renew the well and create a new garden for his own and others' enjoyment on the bank of the Denburn in 1635.  He also either renewed or created the Playe Green which stood where Woolmanhill hospital does today, a space for travelling players to perform - medieval mystery plays were still very popular as were productions of contemporary works, and this site outside the city boundary (yet within the Celtic domain of Gillecoaim, the chief who gave his name to Gilcomston) was ideal for companies arriving by boat or from the south over the Bow Brig.  There are again suggestions that Jameson had nothing to do with the well house as it stood at the top of the Garden Nook he built, but it is more likely that he did, having a master mason for a father, and he was back from Holland and established in his Schoolhill house for 25 years by this time.

The sandstone well house which still exists today bears Jameson's gleeful inscription:

as Heaven gives me, so I give thee

The Four Neuked Garden or Garden-Nook as it appears on later maps was certainly in existence when James Gordon published his map of Aberdeen in 1661 - it remained until 1867, shown clearly on the OS map as sited behind the well house and its sunken circular seating.  There is no mention of the garden by 1912 in the area shown on Bartholomew's map, and its old neighbour, the Gilcomston Brewery had gone by then also.

OS Map Copyright 

The well itself seemed to have survived as the water supply until 1860.  Just a few decades after Jameson's attentions, Baillie Alexander Skene also requested funds to renew the well house in 1670, writing that a new well house was required as "these severall yeires bygone, since the same wes stopit by the violent torrent of wateris which overturned it." It seems the Denburn was prone to flooding, as was perhaps the Gilcomston burn, not far hence, and had damaged the well house.  This was prior to the installation of the plumbing for a universal water supply in the early 1700s for Aberdeen, so Skene was granted his wish - perhaps the canny cooncillors recognising the wisdom of his words concerning the Spa Well's tourist potential! "Those seeklie [sickly] strangeris knowning of such ane free offer of health might make more frequent resort to this burghe"

The well house then receives a new inscription to remind all of the council's generosity: Hoc fonte derivita salus in patriam populunque fliat / May health derived from this spring flow to country and people (Spada Rediviva 1670)

Both the early inscriptions are in the sandstone, which have lead some historians to date the well house from that period, indicating that Jameson may have had the original stone panels with the apostles still on them renewed, some even say Skene made mention of these panels.  Sandstone was the popular building material in the city right through medieval times until the commercial working of granite came into being.  Old Red Sandstone, which lies in the land to the north and south of Aberdeen, was softer and easier to work - some of Andrew Jameson's handiwork can be seen in Provost Ross's house in the Shiprow - so granite was hardly used unless in the form of freestone, i.e., unworked lumps as would be found in a dry stane wall.

Spa Well House in its Regency Setting (Wyness)

Another clue appears in the last inscription which is carved into a block of granite, its grey, hard surface very different to the still crumbly sandstone - reading The work was renewed in 1851.  Enter the Police Commissioners - instituted 1798, the burgh police constabulary to come in 1818 - who find the well is in a bad state of repair and the spring is being diverted by rubble and stones in the burn itself.  The work is done to culvert the burn to protect it from further pollution and the well house most likely re-plumbed.

The well house remains on site until 1893 when it is removed to the hospital side of the road, and re-plumbed again, it being no longer considered a salubrious place to visit.  Fenton Wyness' book 'Aberdeen - A Century of Change' shows an image of the well house in its new spot.

Spa Well in its Edwardian setting - the back wall still exists today
beside the water tank in Woolmanhill Hospital grounds (Wyness)

In 1882 a chemical survey of the well had been carried out by a Thomas Jameson who was able to show its source was the Gilcomston Burn, as the mineral content was identical to a well at Gilcomston Steps, then across from the 'Rotten Holes' the local name for the apprentices' accommodation next to the Broadford Mill.  The water flow had been interrupted by the railway workings in the Denburn Valley, which disrupted both the early streams which had fed into the Loch and others like the Mautmill Burn, the Putachie Burn, all of which eventually emptied into the harbour.

Most of Aberdeen's wells disappeared with new water sources and drainage, few even daring to drink what was now thought to be polluted.

Our friend the Spa Well was no exception - shifted again in 1977 when the new health centre swept away old Upper Denburn forever, and left high and dry, it sits today in a 'pocket park' with a little circular wall reminiscent of the 17th century one, as a curious landmark of the past.

The sun symbol takes us right back to the spring's Pagan ancestry, where the Sun god was the giver of all life, and hence the giver of water too - and the rose, thistle and fleur-de-lis a reminder of Aberdeen's Jacobite sympathies - the 'little white rose of Scotland' that Hugh MacDiarmid said "smells sharp and sweet and breaks the heart" - the prickly thistle declaring "wha daur meddle wi me?" and the lily-flower, symbol of France, the auld ally, but even earlier still, the lily was the flower of the Virgin Mary, the symbol that appeared on the arms of Old Aberdeen and Kings College, and thus a Catholic icon.

The well cured, but no cure found for itself... so if you wander past it one day, give its roof a wee *clappie and say 'Well, well, well..."

*clap (v.) Scots - to pat affectionately; clappie - diminutive of.

images copyright to Fiona-Jane Brown; unless stated; 

The Mystery of Downie's Death

On Tillydrone Avenue there is a rubble-built sandstone obelisk, it's just in front of the Wallace Tower at the edge of Seaton Park.  Last year the council finally got its backside in gear and cleared away the overgrowth of trees and foliage to redisplay this monument, they even cleaned it, turning the area back into a visitor attraction rather than a junkies' drug den!  But never mind that...

The monument has a plaque at its base which proclaims that it is popularly associated with the story of Downie the Sacrist, had previously stood in a garden in the old Berryden estate and was moved to its present position in 1926 - meaning it had been there long before Dr Simpson, the local historian saved Benholm's Lodging (to give the Wallace Tower its real name) from destruction in 1963/4 and had it moved from Netherkirkgate.

The intriguing motto on the stone further confuses matters:

I cannot tell how the truth may be, I say the tale as 't'was said to me

So, who was Downie the Sacrist and why does he have a strange monument associated with him?

Firstly, a sacrist or 'sacristan' was a minor church official whose job it was to look after the communion utensils, ring the bells for services, dig graves and generally maintain the fabric of the building.  Kings College, Aberdeen University had sacrists from its foundation by Bishop William Elphinstone in 1495, their duties extending to ensure the students got their rising and curfew bells - you were expected to be up at 5am as a 15th century student, go to your first church service of the day, all before breakfast, and 4am in the summer!

A Sketch of Kings College before the 1825 remodelling took place 

The sacrist would have unlocked the doors of the college in the morning, allowing non-resident staff to enter.  Students had dormitories within the college and had an extremely regimented life, and considering boys who came to university in those days were as young as 14, it is no surprise to discover that they rebelled against such stringent discipline!

Stan and Ray - university sacrists (image copyright, University of Aberdeen)

Today's sacrists, Stan and Raymond, are fine lads who don't have to dig graves and don't have to get up at stupid o'clock, but officiate at graduations and other official ceremonies throughout the university calendar.  They are employed by the university estates team.

However, George Downie was one of those early sacrists, probably from the late 18th century, when the library was moved to the nave of the Chapel - that is on the left side of the quad when you enter from the front of Kings College - in 1776.  He had a reputation for being officious and a sneak, no student could misbehave on Downie's watch!  It got to the point where some of the older boys decide to play a trick on Downie in revenge for his spoiling of their fun.

It was a night when the masters and professors were invited to a grand dinner in the New Town, and only Downie was on duty.  The students jumped him, putting a blanket over his head, and dragging him into the library.  When the blanket was removed from his head, Downie was horrified to discover that the library had been set up like a court room, and the boys present were all dressed in their academic robes and masked to hide their identities.  He was informed he would be tried for his 'crimes' against the student body, and so began a litany of complaints from the witnesses as to how Downie had annoyed them over the years.  The 'judge' finally declared that the sentence of the court was death.  Downie shrieked and protested that the joke had gone far enough and would they please let him go and he would not tell the masters what they had done.  But to no avail, the 'court' would not be moved.  Enter the 'executioner', cloaked and hooded, carrying a large hatchet not unlike the old axe that 'John Justice' the town executioner carried.

Downie was forced to kneel before an empty basket and informed that on the stroke of midnight, the sentence of the court would be carried out.  Downie shook with fear and begged them to stop, but as the chimes of the clock in the Town House at the top of High Street rang out, the axe man stepped forward to Downie's side.  'May God have mercy on your soul', he intoned as he lifted the blade.  WHACK! The axe fell.

But it wasn't the blade that hit the old man's neck, rather a wet cloth which another student quickly supplied as part of the prank.

They weren't prepared for Downie's reaction - he collapsed.  They could not rouse him, and realised that the shock had been too much, he had died of fright.  The students scattered.  The ring leaders returned the furniture to its place and hauled the unfortunate sacrist's body out of the college, using his keys to unlock the gates.  They buried the body just outside the wall of St Machar Cathedral where a large mason's mark of a star in a circle in the stonework made a handy reference point for the shallow grave.

Next day, Downie's wife came to see the principal, exclaiming that her husband had not come home that morning, and wanted to know what had happened to him.  The search which went on for several days but proved fruitless.  The student body was called together and the principal demanded to know the cause of Downie's disappearance.  Of course, no-one spoke, mindful of the 11th commandment 'thou shalt not grass'.  The only punishment that the principal could issue was something to show that the students were under disgrace.  He ordered for their academic gowns to be shortened from calf-length to knee-length, as a visible sign they had done wrong.  Since that time until the days passed when students had to buy their gowns from the local college clothiers, everyone knew that the students of Kings College had different gowns to those of other universities.

That's the story, but how did it come about?  A bit of evidence-gathering is now required.

According to the university's records there never was a George Downie or Dauney employed as a sacrist at any time.

The story seems to have been attributed to student Robert Mudie of Monymusk around 1825.  Why did Robert start this outlandish tale of accidental death?

1. His father had been a sexton at St. Machar's Cathedral, and may have been the source of the burial part of the tale, with the mason's mark in the wall, which still exists to this day.
2. His grandfather had worked as a sacrist at Kings College.  Perhaps he had heard the story or invented it as a scare story to spook younger employees?

There is more evidence in the 'cairn' or monument's original location at Berryden.  The estate, once known as Berryhill was owned by Alexander Leslie, chemist to trade, in the 1780s, he was also the heir of the Leslies of Powis, his ancestors had been responsible for the building of Powis House near Kings College in 1697, and his descendant John Leslie would build the Powis Towers at the gate house in the 1820s.  Alexander's friend, John Ewen, was a bit of an eccentric, he was a writer of folk songs, and The Boatie Rows is attributed to him.  He also liked follies - structures that were just for show, sometimes aping Grecian temples or medieval towers - and G.M. Fraser, the Aberdeen City Librarian noted that he had built three follies in Berryden (where Sainsbury's is today) with Leslie's permission.

1. A stone grotto, inside which the walls were decorated with Copernicus' theories of astronomy
2. A stone 'crown' or double arch
3. A 9ft rubble cairn which stood inside the arch

The last 'folly' is Downie's Cairn!  Long before it had any inscription, here it stood in the gardens of the Leslies of Powis.

Also, at the same time the same group of intellectuals I mentioned in an earlier post, were responsible for the Castle Spectre, that magazine full of poems, stories and sketches.  Could it be that John Ewen contributed the story to the magazine to the delight of the spookily-minded residents of the Galleries?  Ewen's folly predates the original play which the Forbes' family used as inspiration for their magazine, but who is to say that they did not hear the legend and include it, or that Ewen sent them it, attaching his monument to the tale, a few decades after it was built.

The monument has clearly lost some height in its move to Tillydrone, and who put the inscription there? And who was the source of the motto? The words have been attributed to Mudie, but where did he get them from?  If indeed Mudie is responsible, even he may have been able to find the story in an old copy of the Spectre and told his grandfather who spread it around the university staff, that motto appearing in the text or indeed, sounding very much like an old storyteller's codicil as to the veracity of his words - so indeed we finish on that - I cannot tell how the truth may be, I say the tale as 't'was said to me... 

Bridge over troubled waters...

The Bow Brig

“Official receptions and farewells to important visitors to the town from the south were made here, because then, Union Street and Holburn Street didn’t exist, this thoroughfare which linked up with Hardgate, continued on over the Denburn, by way of the old Bow Brig, into the Green.  This route was truncated in 1850, for the Denburn Valley railway.” Andrew Cluer “Walkin the Mat” (Aberdeen, Lantern Books, 1980)

“This once important landmark formed the link over the Denburn between Windmill Brae and the Green and was thus the main entry to the early burgh.” Edward Meldrum “Aberdeen of Old” (Aberdeen, ANEFHS, 1986)

These quotes kick off the story of an ancient route from the Cairn O’Mount, high in the hills above the Mearns, down to the river Dee, Deva or Devanah, the Romans called it — the Celtic goddess Dé might have been in their minds, but their ignorance of the language caused them to attribute it directly to the river itself — and then over the Ruthrieston or Pack Horse briggie, so called due to its absence of parapets which might have impeded the beasts of burden and their loads, starting on the Hardgate – Hardgait that is, meaning a flat-surfaced way – and down to the city’s medieval heart, the Green.  Before 1810 there is no Union Street, no Holburn Street, the Hardgate is the ONLY route into the Green.  Aberdeen is also built on the east bank of the Denburn river; the only ways across are a number of wooden fords for pedestrians, and a fine stone bridge for those on horseback or driving carts.

Known as the Bow Brig from antiquity, the stone crossing dates rather late in the medieval era, the first being 1556, followed by repairs in 1586.  Andrew Jameson, Master Mason and father of one of Scotland’s earliest portrait painters, George Jameson, was responsible for a grand two arched bridge in 1609, the very one we see on Parson Gordon’s map, still in existence in 1661.

The Denburn river itself, originating in a farm outside Kingswells, was a glacial meltwater, and may even have started in Brimmond Hill, as it powered through Denseat, Rubislaw, Gilcomston, then made a sharp right hand turn down the Denburn Valley to the sea.  In spate even today it is a spectacular sight if you catch it through the garden of the Grammar School, or under the little bridge at Mackie Place, so long before it was culverted, it would easily have caused damage to anything in its path.  

Denburn through Mackie Place - just a trickle in summer

So Jameson’s bridge was washed away the year of Culloden.  The city had felt the wrath of both Jacobite and Hanoverian, but now no more, Scotland’s Protestant future had been assured by the defeat of the Bonnie Prince and his supporters in 1746.

The replacement came from one of the earliest mentioned city architects, John Jeans, who designed the new single arch Bow Brig the following year.  

1789 Map of Aberdeen showing Jeans' bridge connecting Windmill Brae to the Green

Jeans’ bridge fared well, being in existence come hell or high water until the end of the 19^th century.  Famous missionary, Mary Slessor, who was brought up on Mutton Brae, a lost street which lead past Triple Kirks and down to the Denburn, recalled washing still being cut down from the bleach greens on the river’s ‘fast’ days, but not so Jeans’ granite edifice.

Bow Brig still happily in existence in 1867

It was forcibly removed to accommodate the new railway in the Denburn Valley.  From the data available, it would appear that Jeans’ bridge was extended and strengthened with iron girders, much like Union Bridge was when the shops were built in the 1960s, but was then replaced by the ‘Puffin’ Briggie’, an iron rail footbridge in 1910.  The iron bridge remains in living memory of many Aberdonians as it lasted until 1982 and the building of the Trinity Centre.  Children used to yell ‘The brig’s on fire!’ as the steam trains passed underneath and blasted those on it with a cloud of soot and stour.  

1911 Map showing the Puffin' Briggie when new

The iron footbridge in the 1970s still serving the old 'Kings Highway' well

Now we come to the present – the Bow Brig’s line is still traceable through the Trinity Centre car park – 

even the remains of the 18^th century bridge’s stone entry piers are still visible on the Windmill Brae side!  

But after 5pm Mon-Sun and after 8pm on Thursdays for late-night shopping, the gate is firmly LOCKED, keeping ‘undesirables’ out of car park, but at the same time, blocking the ancient right of way which dignitaries of the past would have used to enter the medieval city.

Why should we be dictated to by a shopping centre management committee?  The Trinity Centre is a real ugly carbuncle from the back and blocks the once uninterrupted view of the Denburn Valley continuing down to the Joint Station.  Did we ever ask for shops on Union Bridge? Whose idea was it to ruin that nice structure too? No longer can we see the stone, encased as it is in iron and steel, unless we climb onto railway property from Union Terrace Gardens and walk down under the bridge itself!  Come on, that’s cultural vandalism! 

Never forget the Bow Brig – or the Denburn, the vital signs of our history.  I’m hoping the Scottish Rights of Way Society will have something constructive to tell me on this issue very soon.  Keep you posted.  Meanwhile, a few stanzas from a poem called The Auld Bow Brig, possibly written by Davie Duncan, as it appeared in Cluer’s 1980 publication Walkin’ the Mat, a must for any serious local amateur historian.

When manhood approached them, they a’ slipped awa —

Some gaed to the sea, some the plough for to ca’;

Ithers went to Australia, their fortunes to dig,

And forsook a’ their pranks at the auld Bow Brig.

The toon cooncillors came, when the loons were frae hame,

Tore doon the auld brig (oh! Mair to their shame);

Had the loons been there, faith, ‘the man wi’ the wig’

Durstnae touched but ae stane o the auld Bow Brig.

But it’s jist whit they dae wi’ the puir workin’ man —

Och, they tear him to pieces as soon as they can;

But stap them th’gither, wi’ their bellies sae big,

They could raise nae sic biggin as the auld Bow Brig

Picture credits; FJB (images inside Trinity Centre car park & Denburn in Mackie Place); National Library of Scotland Map Collection (Map extracts) and RAILSCOT fan site (Puffin' Briggie) - do not reproduce without permission!!