General exterior view of Masonic Temple, Crown Street from South-West.

Description General exterior view of Masonic Temple, Crown Street from South-West.

Date 1911

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

Catalogue Number SC 736818

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of BL 21371

Scope and Content Masonic Temple, No 85 Crown Street, Aberdeen Aberdeen's Masonic Temple, a rather severe Greek-Roman-style building on the corner of Crown Street and Academy Street, was designed in 1909-10 by Harbourne MacLennan of the architectural firm, Jenkins & Marr, as a temple and meeting halls for the Masonic Lodges and other Orders of Freemasonry in the city. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the building in 1911. The temple, a two-storeyed building with attic and basement levels, has a five-windowed front to Crown Street. The central entrance bay projects forward from the rest of the building, and is topped by an exuberant broken pediment supported by coupled Ionic columns. The gable to Academy Street has round windows at ground-floor level, and a bracketed block and sundial on the chimney-stack. Freemasons are members of an organisation based on mutual help and fellowship who have unique and elaborate secret rituals. In the 18th century they generally met in taverns, and only gradually did individual Lodges (an assembly of Freemasons) acquire property as permanent venues for meetings. Purpose-built Masonic Halls became usual during the 19th century, by the 20th century some of the buildings had become very grand indeed, with opulent and lavish interiors. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference Box 59

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/736818

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap