Aberdeen Town House is a municipal facility in Castle Street,

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), a ...

, Scotland. The town house, which is the headquarters of

Aberdeen City Council gd, Comhairle Cathair Obar Dheathain , native_name_lang = , other_name = , image_skyline = Town House, Municipal Offices and Court Houses in Aberdeen.jpg , image_caption ...

, is a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

History

Mortification boards Aberdeen Town House

After rapid population growth in the first half of the 19th century, civic leaders decided that the early 17th-century

tolbooth A tolbooth or town house was the main municipal building of a Scottish burgh, from medieval times until the 19th century. The tolbooth usually provided a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail. The tolbooth was one of three esse ...

and the early 19th-century courthouse, which had been built adjacent to the tolbooth, were inadequate for their needs. They decided to demolish the old courthouse and to incorporate the remaining part of the tolbooth into a new structure. The new building was designed by Peddie and Kinnear in the

Scottish baronial style Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Sco ...

and was completed in 1874. The design involved an asymmetrical frontage with fifteen bays along Castle Street; the central section of five bays featured segmental-arched arcading on the ground floor and double-height segmental-arched windows on the second and third floors; the western section incorporated a five-stage clock tower with a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

while the eastern section incorporated the southern elevation of the old tolbooth. Internally, the principal room was the double-height council chamber. The new town house served as the headquarters of Aberdeen Town Council until 1895, when that body was replaced by Aberdeen Corporation.

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

and

Queen Alexandra Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 to 6 May 1910 as the wife of ...

inspected a Guard of Honour from the 3rd Battalion of the

Gordon Highlanders Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Clan Gord ...

in front of the new town house on 27 September 1906. The building remained the Corporation's headquarters until it was replaced by Aberdeen District Council under the wider

Grampian Grampian ( gd, Roinn a' Mhonaidh) was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. The region t ...

Regional Council in May 1975. The foundation stone for an extension along Broad Street was laid by the Lord Provost, Robert Lennox, on 17 November 1975. The extension which was designed by the city architects, I. A. Ferguson and T. C. Watson, was built by

Taylor Woodrow Construction Taylor Woodrow Construction, branded as Taylor Woodrow, is a UK-based civil engineering contractor and one of four operating divisions of Vinci Construction UK. The business was launched in 2011, combining civil engineering operations from the ...

. The complex then remained the Aberdeen District Council headquarters until the abolition of the Grampian Region led to the formation of

Aberdeen City Council gd, Comhairle Cathair Obar Dheathain , native_name_lang = , other_name = , image_skyline = Town House, Municipal Offices and Court Houses in Aberdeen.jpg , image_caption ...

in April 1996. The whole complex was extensively refurbished at a cost of £4 million between August 2014 and March 2017. Works of art in the complex include a sculpture of

Robert the Bruce Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Scottish Gaelic: ''Raibeart an Bruis''), was King of Scots from 1306 to his death in 1329. One of the most renowned warriors of his generation, Robert eventuall ...

Anne Davidson Anne Ross Davidson, DA (3 February 1937 in Glasgow – 20 December 2008 in Aberdeen) was a Scottish sculptor and artist. Many of her commissioned works are on public view in Scotland and abroad. Early years Anne Ross was educated at the Convent ...

showing the Scottish king in 14th-century armour carrying his shield and sword.

References

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Government buildings completed in 1874 1874 establishments in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Aberdeen Listed government buildings in Scotland Politics of Aberdeen Clock towers in the United Kingdom

History

See also

References