St Machar's Cathedral

St Machar’s Cathedral stands in Old Aberdeen, near the point where the River Don curves towards the sea. Tradition links the site to St Machar, said to have been a companion of St Columba, who is held to have founded a place of worship here around 580 AD; a later legend tells that he was directed to build where the river bends like a bishop’s crosier. A Norman cathedral followed in 1131, after David I moved the bishop’s seat from Mortlach to Aberdeen. Almost nothing of that building survives. In the late 14th century Bishop Alexander Kininmund II demolished the earlier structure and began the granite nave and western towers, work carried on by his successors; Bishop Gavin Dunbar added the heraldic ceiling and the western spires in the early 16th century. The twin towers, built in a tower-house manner with spiral stairs and battlements, give the church its fortress-like front. The Reformation of 1560 saw the chancel pulled down, and a storm in 1688 brought down the central tower, wrecking the choir and transepts, so that worship continued in the nave alone. The ruined crossing, cared for by Historic Environment Scotland, shelters late medieval bishops’ tombs.