General interior view of chapel.

Description General interior view of chapel.

Date 1911

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number BL 21375

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies B 64704, AB 3184 PO, SC 736798

Scope and Content Masonic Temple, No 85 Crown Street, Aberdeen Aberdeen's Masonic Temple was designed in 1909-10 by Harbourne MacLennan of the architectural firm, Jenkins & Marr, as a temple and meeting halls to serve the Masonic Lodges and other Orders of Freemasonry in the city. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the interior in 1911. The temple has a barrel-vaulted ceiling with richly decorated plasterwork on the transverse beams which rise from winged figures borne on stone corbels. The walls are wood panelled, with magnificent pedimented doorcases, and the floor is covered in a carpet with a pattern of alternate black and white squares. A ceremonial chair stands at the far end. The plan of the temple is based on the Biblical Temple of Solomon, the perfect building constructed under divine guidance which was destroyed by the Babylonians. The carpet represents the mosaic pavement of the temple, with the black and white squares symbolising human life checked with good and evil (Man's chequered existence). The room is decorated with Masonic emblems, and a list of the Masonic virtues appears on the frieze running around the room. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium Glass

External Reference Box 59

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