"In the bustling manufacturing town which has lately become, and is
likely for some time to remain, the extreme northern point of our great
system of railway communication, a venerable cathedral, surrounded by
tree, with a pleasant river sweeping past it, is scarcely an expected
sight. But the two divisions of Aberdeen the old and the new town--are
as unlike each other as Canterbury and Manchester. The old town, or
'Alton,' as it is locally termed, is not the most ancient part of a city
of different periods, around which its modern streets and squares have
ramified. It is a distinct hamlet or village, at some distance from the
city, and edged away in privacy apart from the great thoroughfares
connecting the manufacturing centre with other districts of the country.
Its houses are venerable, standing generally in ancient gardens; and
save that the beauty and tranquillity of the spot have led to the
erection of a few pleasant modern villas, dotting it here and there,
whoever treads the one echoing street of the Alton for the first time,
feels that two centuries must have brought very little external change
to the objects by which he is surrounded. In this pristine place, the
short-spiked steeples, and the broad-slated roof of the old cathedral of
St. Machar may be seen rising over a cluster of fine old trees which top
the sloping bank of the winding Don, from the opposite shore of which
the whole scene--comprehending the river, the sloping banks, the trees,
and the gray old church--makes a very perfect landscape, rather English
than Scottish in its aspect.
"A near approach develops something very peculiar in the character of
this edifice. It bears throughout unmistakable marks of age, but none of
decay. It is gray with the weather-wearing of centuries, but it displays
none of the mouldering vestiges of Time's decaying fingers; nor yet has
it that prim air of good keeping which shows, in treasured antiquities,
that careful hands have sedulously restored each feature that age may
have injured. It is clear that the completeness of detail--the clean
outlines, the hard, unworn surfaces--are characteristics of innate
strength, and connect themselves with the causes of a certain northern
sternness and rigidity in the general architectural designs.
"The secret of all these peculiarities is to be found in the nature of
the material, which is granite--the same that has handed down to us,
through thousands of years, the cold, stony eyes of the sphynx,
precisely as the chisel last touched them--and retains, to the wonder
of the Londoners, the glittering lustre of the polished cheeks of
Rameses. The stern nature of the primitive rock--obdurate alike to the
chisel and to time--has entirely governed the character of the
architecture; and, while it has precluded lightness and decoration, has
given opportunities for a certain gloomy dignity. About the porch, one
or two niches and other small details, have been decorated; but as if
the artist had abandoned the task of chiselling his obdurate materials
as a vain one, ornament goes no farther, and all the architectural
effects are the fruit of bold design. Such, for instance, is the great
west window--not mullioned, but divided by long massive stone shafts
into seven arched compartments; such, too, is the low-browed doorway
beneath, with its heavy semicircular arch. The upper tier of
windows--here called _storm_ windows, perhaps as a corruption of
_dormer_--are the plain, unmoulded arch, such as one sometimes sees it
in unadorned buildings of the earlier Norman period. Indeed, though the
building dates from the second age of the Pointed style, it associates
itself in some of its features, very closely with the relics of the
Norman age, especially in the short, massive round pillars which support
the clerestory. The roof, with its carving, gilding, and bright heraldic
colors, is in thorough contrast with the rest of the architecture, and
the eye gratefully relieves itself from the gloom below, by wandering
over its quaint devices and gaudy hues. It is divided into three
longitudinal departments, panelled with richly-carved oak; and at each
intersection of the divisions of the compartments with the cross-beams,
there is emblazoned a shield armorial, with an inscription.
"It is an uncommon thing to find, as in this instance we do, the nave
only of a church remaining, for the chancel was generally the part first
erected, and sometimes the only part. The remains of the central and
eastern portions of St. Machar's tell how the western compartment braved
the causes of destruction which to them had been fatal: they were built
of freestone. Incrusted, as it were, in the eastern wall, are the
clustered freestone pillars, with richly-flowered capitals, which of old
supported the central square tower; and on either side are the vestiges
of the transept, with the remains of the richly-sculptured tombs,
represented in the accompanying plate, embedded in the wall. In
Slezer's, and some other representations of this building in the
seventeenth century, the tower--a simple square mass, with a
roof--appears to have been still standing, but the choir had
disappeared."