ABSTRACT
In the later 17th century Aberdeen had endured its last attacks, loss of life, and damage to the town in the battles of the civil wars, specifically of Craibstone. And although there was still some uneasiness about whether there would be Episcopal government of the Kirk this was soon settled in favour of the Presbyterians. Aberdeen was a busy, crowded, and prosperous town of perhaps 10,000 inhabitants. As such its trade with northern Europe brought it into contact potentially with the growing importance of Amsterdam or of Antwerp, both of which were enjoying the benefits of their new metropolitan status, yet there was very little to be seen of architecture here. Despite the civility, even douceness of the town, it was a mediaeval civility where the streets had seemingly grown up by themselves, where the underlying structure of the burghal plots may have been recognized but was hardly celebrated. Indeed even in these newly important metropolitan towns the design of fine building and related open spaces whether imagined or carried out remained exceptional. The new Town Hall (since 1805 the royal Palace) on Dam Square by Van Campen, and the earlier Town House of Antwerp, were themselves extraordinary in their own contexts, and while they might inspire, the only architecture to be seen in Aberdeen was on a much smaller scale. At the gateway to Marischal College for example, certainly in the internal fittings of St Nicholas, Kings and Greyfriars, or the splendid and robust St Machar and apart from the gateway these are all still ecclesiastical monuments, their magnificence is of a different order from what was understood as architecture (Campbell 1995).
