Publication Account

Date 1997

Event ID 1019116

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1019116

On 10 February 1495, a college dedicated to St Mary in the Nativity was founded by papal bull at Old Aberdeen, a spot endowed with a 'temperate climate, abundance of victuals, convenience of dwellings and good store of the other things pertaining to human life '. The first students of what was to become named King's College were taught in the manses of the chanonry from 1495, since nearly ten years were to elapse before sufficient funds were available to guarantee the necessary stipends and bursaries, although the building programme of Elphinstone's university was under way almost immediately. The curriculum embraced theology, civil law, canon law, medicine and the liberal arts, and was modelled on the universities of Orleans and Paris. The intention, moreover, was that bursaried students should come from the north-eastern region as a whole, but that poor, gifted candidates should be given priority.

The nucleus of the university buildings was the quadrangle, which in 1505 was bounded to the north by the chapel and the great hall; to the east by accommodation for the principal and some staff and students, and by the Crown Tower, an open imperial crown, perhaps to assert the Scottish monarchy's imperial pretensions; and to the west and south by chambers for the masters and students. In the centre of the quadrangle stood a well. To the south-west and north-east stood two towers. The latter, the Ivy Tower or Round Tower, completed in 1525 and originally topped with a wooden spire, may have served the university in the repulse of the reforming mob that moved on Old Aberdeen in 1560. It may also have functioned as the repository for the college armoury and precious manuscripts.

To the north of the quadrangle stood the college chapel. In 1498 work had begun on clearing the site, which proved so marshy that foundations had to be laid on rafts of oak. (The falling away to the east of the windows may be evidence of subsidence of the foundations at the north-eastern end during construction). Work on the building, however, was officially begun by 2 April 1500, as is indicated on the original inscription at the north side of the west door of the chapel. Construction was completed by c 1504: the date and the royal arms are sculpted on the three central buttresses. The master-mason may have been either Alexander Gray, who had been working on the tower of St Giles Church, Edinburgh, or John Gray, the mason responsible for the nave in St Nicholas Church, New Aberdeen (see area 7, above). The leading of the roof was executed by John Burnel, Henry VII's master-plumber, in 1506. 11 Much of the chapel has survived, in spite of damage at the Reformation: the sixteenth-century oak screen, a rare example of medieval workmanship; the choir stalls which reveal Flemish influence but were perhaps made locally by master joiners including John Fendour; windows with looped and pointed arches and broad central mullions; the 1505 slender spire that bisects the line of the roof; and an early single-faced sundial on the south side of the chapel. Within the quad along the south wall of the chapel there was originally a sacristy, library and jewel house which was completed sometime between 1532 and 1545.

The entire complex was enclosed by a precinct wall, both to isolate students and encourage undistracted study, and possibly for protection. Some buildings and associated lands, however, stood outwith the wall: a manse for the mediciner, for example, stood to the west side of College Bounds, and it was intended to expand still further beyond the Powis Burn.

King's College also suffered mixed fortunes in this period. The purge of Catholic teaching staff in 1569, together with the dismissal of the chapel's eight prebendaries and six choir boys, did not bring a quick regeneration: the New Foundation of 1583, which redesigned the arts course along Melvillian lines, was accompanied by wholesale cuts in the teaching establishment; and in the early years of the seventeenth century most of the chapel windows were broken or built up. Natural disaster also intervened: a storm in 1633 blew down the crown above the chapel. The period of Bishop Patrick Forbes (1618-35) saw further reform, an intellectual revival, the establishment of a printing press and a modest increase in student numbers. But his death cut short his reform programme, and instability and uncertainty were soon to follow in the Covenanting years; the college would take a long period to recover from it. A plan, which had probably originated with Forbes, to unite King's College and Marischal College, founded in 1593 in New Aberdeen, under the title of 'King Charles's University', foundered in 1641. Both colleges refused to cooperate and King's College retained its independence until 1860, when it was united with Marischal College to form an enlarged university. Some reforms, however, were effected during the period of Cromwell's Protectorate and in 1658-62 the 70 ft (2 1.34 m) high Cromwell Tower was constructed at the east end of the chapel to accommodate extra students on six floors, with four rooms to a floor. This was altered to four floors in the 1820s.

A grammar school (visible on Slezer's vignette figure 47) was built between the west facade of the college and College Bounds. This stood until the late eighteenth century when it was removed along with much of the west front. At some date between 1825 and 1832 John Smith's west range replaced the south-west tower and the original western facade, apart from the Crown Tower. The southern wing had been replaced in 1730 and was rebuilt again in 1860. The sacristy, jewel house and library had also been rebuilt and enlarged in 1725, and then were destroyed by fire in c 1772. The university books were saved, however, and the nave of the chapel served as the library until the new library by Robert Matheson replaced the sixteenth-century east wing. Four episodes of archaeological watching brief have been carried out in the vicinity of King's College (see below), but so far no archaeological evidence relevant to any of the above structures has been recorded.

Information from ‘Historic Aberdeen: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1997).