Tam Framper's Manse - Medieval Intrigue Leads to Haunting?

Old Aberdeen’s Chanonry reeks of mystery and antiquity as one wanders down past the high-walled 19th century mansions towards St. Machar Cathedral, yet in medieval times, it would have looked completely different.  The street name referred to the manses of the “canons-regular” or prebendaries of the cathedral; historian William Orem describes their duties “they were the parsons of the churches in the country, and had curates under them who performed divine service at their respective churches.”  One canon’s house in particular was known as “Tam Framper’s Manse”, because, Orem tells us, “it was haunted”.  

Bishop William Elphinstone

The first manse was built by Canon Thomas Edname, the prebendary of Clatt Parish, around the late 1400s.  The next incumbent, Canon John Scherar is singled out as one of the churchmen who helped Bishop Elphinstone create the design for Kings College Chapel in 1505.  The name Framper is a complete mystery, but there are stories of a ghostly figure seen gardening in the old manse plot.  After the Reformation, the manse belonged to Alexander Hay, Secretary of State to James VI.  The following inhabitants might have been the source of the haunting as their time at Clatt Manse was not a happy one.

Alexander Gordon of Strathdon was the third son of the 5th Earl of Huntly.  His grandfather had died of a stroke after the Battle of Corrichie in 1562, the 4th Earl’s forces being defeated by the Earl of Moray, James Stewart, the queen’s half-brother.  Alexander’s father had luckily gained a pardon and the Catholic Gordons prospered again despite James VI’s Protestant stance.  Alexander’s wife was Agnes Sinclair, who was Countess of Erroll in respect of her first husband, the late Andrew Hay.  They married in 1588, and took ownership of the Clatt Manse, the same year Alexander’s elder brother, George, the heir, married Henrietta Stewart, who was a cousin of the king.   

5th Earl of Huntly
from Myheritageimages site

Yet by 1591, Alexander’s brother had ordered their eviction from the manse which was carried out in spectacularly cruel fashion by another cousin, Harold Gordon of Haddo.  On the 28 July that year, as the couple would later complain to the Scots Privy Council – the medieval equivalent of the Scottish parliament – that Haddo had “violently put forth their servants, goods and other items and took possession of the property”.  What had the pair done to upset the Earl?  

The rift between the brothers may lie in the fact of George being accused the following year of involvement in the “Spanish Blanks Conspiracy”.  A number of secret letters had been discovered which were bound for King Philip of Spain, asking him to invade Britain and restore Catholicism.  The Spanish Armada had been defeated and shipwrecked in 1588, thus the Spanish monarch would have welcomed a plot of this nature from his Scots allies.  Co-accused with the Earl of Huntly were William Douglas, Patrick Gordon and Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll.  The latter was Agnes Gordon’s stepson.  Her first husband, Andrew Hay, had been married to his cousin, Lady Jean Hay, of which Francis was the product.  Agnes clearly cared about him, as she would later find herself on trial for aiding Francis after he had been outlawed.  James VI was very lenient with the conspirators, yet by this time George had already evicted Alexander from the manse.  Was it then a knee-jerk reaction even before the plot came to light? Did Francis or Agnes threaten to reveal the treachery? George was clearly angry about something, to order such a humiliating action against his own brother, thus it may have been rooted in fear of Agnes’ unpredictable stepson.

That does not fully explain the origin of “Tam Framper” or any supernatural activity at the property.  However, many ghost hunters revel in the supposition that hauntings usually follow at the site of a violent incident, so was Tam Framper the Gordons’ gardener who had tried to prevent Haddo’s eviction and perhaps died in the attempt? 

No.12, The Chanonry, the site of Clatt Manse, is now a seven-bedroomed mansion, that is Tillydrone House, but perhaps Tam likes to come back every so often and ensure the flowers look pretty, just as his mistress, Lady Agnes Gordon preferred in more peaceable times.    

The beautiful Tillydrone House - on the site covering Clatt & Mortlach Manses

Murderous Malcolm & the Mither Kirk

According to local historians over the last two centuries, the “Mither Kirk” of St Nicholas dates from the twelfth century.  However, due to carbon dating evidence gleaned from an archaeological dig in the foundations of the East Kirk, it would appear that the church’s true foundations date back a whole century earlier.

Alison Cameron, the lead archaeologist on the dig which was completed in 2005, explained that the carbon dating process is skewed here in the North-East due to the fish-rich diet of our Iron Age forebears, thus a date around AD 1060 is most likely for the stone apse around which these graves, mainly of children, were found.  This means that Aberdeen had a major place of worship built of stone one hundred and eighteen years before it became a royal burgh. 

William the Lion’s charter of 1178 to the citizens of Aberdeen is also thought to have been a re-confirmation of his grandfather David I’s 1136 grant of similar rights to the bishops of “Aberdon”, i.e. Old Aberdeen. Aberdon had been granted the status of bishopric in 1124, in preference to the settlement based between the Dee and the Denburn rivers.  This suggests that there was a stone church in Aberdeen already, thus the new bishop, Nechtan, who had come at the monarch’s request from the old bishopric of Mortlach (modern-day Dufftown) in Banffshire, concentrated on planning a cathedral for Old Aberdeen instead. 

Enter now the character of Malcolm Canmore; depicted as a hero in literature, but in reality was from a line of men desperate to get their hands on the Scots throne, as they were not part of the main royal clan.  Malcolm “Ceann Mór”, his Gaelic nickname meaning “great leader” (or simply “big head”), defeated and slew his rival Macbeth at the Battle of Lumphanan in 1057.  Historically, Macbeth was the total opposite of Shakespeare’s villain in the infamous “Scottish Play”; he and his wife, Gruoch, were both descended from earlier Celtic kings.  In terms of the Celtic form of succession, whereby a new “Ard Righ” or High King was chosen from the royal clan, rather than necessarily being the king’s son or daughter, the Macbeths thus had a better claim to the throne than either Malcolm or his father, Duncan.

In 1065, after seizing the leadership, Malcolm established the new bishopric of Mortlach in Moray, Macbeth’s home territory where the latter’s supporters were the biggest risk to the new regime.  Such a decision meant Malcolm could control his enemies both spiritually and politically.  However, perhaps the new ruler felt guilty for spilling the blood of his enemy? After all, Scots kings were anointed, and thus their leadership blessed by the Almighty; king or not, Malcolm had committed a mortal sin for which he had to find a way to atone.    Was it he then who gave a grant to the ancient settlement by the Denburn for a stone church? And indeed, was it a murderer who chose the dedication to St Nicholas?  In later generations, Malcolm’s descendants lavished grants on monasteries and churches all over Scotland, so did he start a trend in order to demonstrate he was not just a terrorist who had seized the throne from the rightful leader? 

Whatever the truth, the physical evidence tells us that Aberdeen’s earliest known stone church was built around the time Mortlach was established by Malcolm III.  His son David I was responsible for translating the bishopric to Aberdeen in 1124, thirty years after Malcolm’s death.  Suddenly David’s choice now makes perfect sense, as he no longer needs to keep a strict hold on Moray, and wants the church his father had founded to be at the centre of a new burgh. 

This new light on the city’s earliest times shows that not only had there been continuous settlement from the Stone Age around the Denburn, but that Christianity had been part of its culture since the sixth century following the religious foundations of travelling missionaries like Machar, Ternan and Fittach/Fittick.  The “Mither Kirk” therefore has been the central place of worship for Aberdonians for over a thousand years, perhaps partly due to one man’s desire to atone for sin.

St Clement's: Fittie's Forgotten Kirk

St. Clement’s: Fittie’s Forgotten Kirk

Standing in the Beach Retail Park, you might just catch a glimpse of a curious turreted building peeking over the modern corrugated iron roofs.  This is the old St. Clement’s Church of Fittie, designed by the man who was also responsible for the layout of the “fisher squares” in 1809, “Tudor Johnny” Smith, Aberdeen’s first city architect.  The pretty, neo-Gothic spire with its intricate spindles echoes another of his designs, that of Nigg Kirk at the top of Wellington Road.  

St Clement’s was once the central place of worship for the fishermen and their families who lived in the old hamlet of “Pockraw”, now lost under Wellington Quay. When the “new” Fittie was constructed, an earlier church stood on this site, having been repaired in 1787.  For two years it had been entirely ruinous, and Baillie Copland decided to invest in its repair.  The canny councillor provided the funds in exchange for the rent of the glebe lands and the pews for the next twenty-one years.  He made a shrewd exception for those he knew could not afford to pay; “save for the poor fishers of Fittie who are free.” 

This ancient church, dating from some time in the mid-fifteenth century, also benefited from investment by local worthies in 1632.  Such luminaries as portrait artist, George Jamieson and burgess, George Davidson of Pettens freely donated sums to refurbish the medieval kirk.  Davidson, a noted landowner who had come from humble beginnings as a hawker, financed and supervised the building of an enclosing wall for the kirkyard in 1650. 

The first mention of a church dedicated to St Clement here is in 1467 when the local priest, Fr Bannerman petitioned the council to provide straw to repair the thatch roof.  The congregation consisted mainly of “white fishers”, as in 1498, they declared to the council that they were willing to pay two shillings a year to the maintenance of their chapel.  The choice of dedication was also significant; like Nicholas, Clement was associated with seafarers.  He is reckoned by the Catholic Church to be the second pontiff following Apostle Peter.  He was martyred by being tied to a sea-anchor and thrown overboard.  The “Mariners’ Cross”, an anchor with a prominent cross-piece is Clement’s symbol. 

The nineteenth century Protestant ministers were no less flamboyant than the old saint; Alexander Gammie describes some of them in his Churches of Aberdeen.  The Rev John Thomson, who took the charge in 1787, just after Copland’s much-needed financial intervention, was noted not only for his extensive tenure of fifty-one years, but his eccentric behaviour in the pulpit.  He would throw his head up to the ceiling at the start of a sermon, and as he announced the first sentence, would cast his eyes down to the floor, and stretch out his hands from his waist.  His parishioners described it “like a hen holding her head up after drinking”.

Rev Walter Carrick, who hailed from St Andrews and held the shortest tenure, delighted the Fittie folk with his powerful oratory.  Journalist William Carnie reported “In his preaching, he drew very effective illustrations from the heavenly bodies in their courses, and to see him, pale, spare of form, wrapt in his work, his outstretched arm, with finger pointing heavenward during a fervent burst of adoration, was a pulpit picture not to be soon forgotten."  Carrick died less than six months into the job. 

The present kirkyard has some fascinating headstones including a number of military monuments dating from as early as the first Afghan Wars.  31 year-old Dr William Balfour, an assistant surgeon was killed in 1842, and is remembered on an impressive table-tomb recording his loss during the retreat from Kabul of the 44^th Regiment of Foot.  John Sutherland McIntosh, only 19, died in France in February 1918, his proud, but sorrowing parents recording on the grave “He died for King and Country.”  

Now bereft of its congregation, St Clement’s stands alone amid a mass of industry and commerce, yet losses at sea are as relevant today as they were to the medieval fishers who pledged to maintain their kirk all those centuries ago.  Perhaps a prayer to St Clement would not be amiss even now?   

Where are the Bodies Buried?

We Know Where The Bodies Are Buried – a catalogue of lost internments

Fifty years ago, on 15 August, 1963, Henry John Burnett was hanged at Craiginches Prison for the murder by shooting of Thomas Guyan, with whose wife, Margaret he had been having an affair.  Burnett had the dubious honour of being the last man in Scotland to be executed.  A few seconds after 8am on that fateful day, executioner Harry Allen operated the lever which opened the trapdoor beneath Burnett’s feet and sent him into Eternity.  Forty-five minutes later, his body was removed, certified dead by a doctor, and was buried in the prison grounds following a short, private service. 

Last week, the Evening Express featured Burnett’s baby-faced image on its front page, proclaiming that his remains were to be exhumed due to the imminent closure of HMP Aberdeen, as it will be officially replaced in March 2014 by a new “super jail” at Peterhead.  This is a real novelty, as all executed persons’ bodies become property of the state, and normally the relatives are never able to visit the burial spot.  However, Burnett’s surviving siblings will be given the chance to inter their brother somewhere more pleasant than the empty space outside the old classroom block of Craiginches.

Burnett’s case may sound unique, but there are other criminals whose remains are very likely still under our feet.  Craiginches was preceded by the East Prison, built in 1829, itself a replacement for the ancient Tolbooth in Castlegate.  Our current police headquarters stand on the site of the East Prison.  The latter was remodelled to become the offices of Aberdeen City Police in 1891, before the present building replaced it in 1970.

Four sets of killers’ bones lie there.  The last man to face the gallows in public was John Booth in 1857.  A native of Oldmeldrum, Booth had gone on a drunken rampage, threatening his wife with a clasp knife, believing she had been unfaithful.  He ended up stabbing his mother-in-law as she tried to protect her unfortunate daughter.  He was held in the East Prison until the day of his execution, after which his body was buried in the prison grounds.  Alongside him were the remains of the brutal murderer, George Christie, who had hacked to death Barbara Ross and her young son at Kittybrewster.  He was dispatched by English hangman, William Calcraft in 1853.  Another Burnett, James, the Boyndlie poisoner, was also interred there, after being executed in 1849 for poisoning his wife in order to marry his lover, Janet Carty.  James Robb, rapist and murderer was the only other known criminal buried there.  There is no obvious evidence that any of their remains were moved after the police HQ opened.  The Queen Street building is also due to disappear from our skyline in a few years, as plans emerge of a move for the police to new premises, so will there be an excavation then?

However, it is not only criminals who have had their bones trampled underfoot; many innocent members of the Society of Friends suffered a similar fate.  The unofficial burial ground of the Quakers on Porthill, Gallowgate, a former kailyard, which the group purchased in 1671, was firstly disturbed by the council, who fined members of the group for “improper burials”.  Thomas Milne had two of his baby sons removed from the ground and reinterred at St Nicholas kirkyard.  Eventually the persecution of the Friends faded away and they were left to remember their dead in peace.  The last internment was in 1811; the Friends built a meeting house above the site which remained there until 1907.  However, there is no mention that the Quaker dead were removed.  Thus the residents of Porthill Court, the 1970s towerblock which stands partially on the site, could still be walking over a burial ground to this day.

Historians took years to find the body of the much-maligned English monarch, Richard III; so who knows what other bodies still lie under the concrete and clay of our own city? At least Harry Burnett’s bones might finally rest in peace, a young man whom many believed at the time should have been reprieved on the grounds of diminished responsibility.