St Machar’s Cathedral – Wikipedia

West door, St Machar ‘s Cathedral The cathedral entrance St Machar’s Cathedral normally called Old Machar ( scots Gaelic : Cathair-eaglais Naomh Machar ), ( or, more formally, the Cathedral Church of St Machar ) is a church of Scotland church in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is located to the north of the city center, in the former burgh of Old Aberdeen. technically, St Machar ‘s is no longer a cathedral but preferably a high kirk, as it has not been the seat of a bishop since 1690 .

history [edit ]

St Machar is said to have been a company of St Columba on his travel to Iona. A fourteenth-century caption tells how God ( or St Columba ) told Machar to establish a church service where a river bends into the form of a bishop ‘s crosier before flowing into the sea. The River Don bends in this way just below where the cathedral nowadays stands. According to legend, St Machar founded a site of worship in Old Aberdeen in about 580. Machar ‘s church was superseded by a Norman cathedral in 1131, soon after David I transferred the See from Mortlach to Aberdeen. Almost nothing of that original cathedral survives ; a lozenge-decorated establish for a capital supporting one of the architraves can be seen in the Charter Room in the present church. After the execution of William Wallace in 1305, his consistency was cut up and sent to unlike corners of the country to warn other dissenters. His left quarter ended up in Aberdeen and is buried in the walls of the cathedral. [ 1 ] At the end of the thirteenth hundred Bishop Henry Cheyne decided to extend the church, but the work was interrupted by the scots Wars of Independence. Cheyne ‘s build up included piers for an prolong choir at the transept crossing. These pillars, with adorned capitals of crimson sandstone, are however visible at the east end of the present church. Though tire by exposure to the elements after the collapse of the cathedral ‘s central loom, these capitals are among the finest stone carvings of their date to survive in Scotland. Bishop Alexander Kininmund II demolished the Norman cathedral in the late fourteenth hundred, and began the nave, including the granite column and the towers at the western end. Bishop Henry Lichtoun completed the nave, the west front and the northern transept, and made a start on the central column. Bishop Ingram Lindsay completed the ceiling and the paving stones in the late part of the fifteenth hundred. far oeuvre was done over the adjacent fifty years by Thomas Spens, William Elphinstone and Gavin Dunbar ; Dunbar is responsible for the heraldic ceiling and the two westerly spires. The chancel was demolished in 1560 during the scots Reformation. The bells and lead from the roof were sent to be sold in Holland, but the ship sank near Girdle Ness. [ 2 ] The central tower and steeple collapsed in 1688, in a storm, and this destroyed the choir and transepts. The west arch of the crossbreed was then filled in, and worship carried on in the nave only ; the current church consists only of the nave and aisles of the earlier build. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] The ruined transepts and crossing are under the wish of Historic Environment Scotland, and contain an important group of belated chivalric bishops ‘ tombs, protected from the weather by advanced canopies. The cathedral is chiefly construct of outlayer granite. On the alone apartment panelled ceiling of the nave ( first half of the sixteenth Century ) are the heraldic shields of the contemporary kings of Europe, and the head earl and bishops of Scotland. The cathedral is an example of a arm kirk, with duplicate towers, believed to have been inspired by the central tugboat of Perth ‘s St John ‘s Kirk, [ 5 ] built in the fashion of fourteenth-century column houses. Their walls have the force to hold helix staircases to the upper floors and battlements. The spires which presently crown the towers were added in the fifteenth century. Bishops Gavin Dunbar and Alexander Galloway built the western towers and installed the heraldic ceiling. luminary figures buried in the cathedral cemetery include the generator J.J. Bell, Robert Brough, Gavin Dunbar, Robert Laws, a missionary to Malawi [ 3 ] and William Ogilvie of Pittensear —the ‘ rebel professor ’. St Machar ‘s kirk has been featured by BBC TV ‘s Songs of Praise. [ 6 ] [ 7 ]

Ministry [edit ]

The minister from 2004 to 2011 was the Reverend Dr Alan D. Falconer, who previously worked with the Secretariat of the World Council of Churches in Geneva. In 2011 the Reverend Jane Barron became the first female minister of St Machar ‘s Cathedral. She was once minister at St Andrew ‘s Church, Jerusalem and Stobswell Parish Church, Dundee. In 2015 Rev Barry Dunsmore became curate of St Machar ‘s Cathedral. luminary past ministers include : [ 8 ]

conservation and restoration [edit ]

There has been considerable investing in holocene years in restitution work and the improvement of the expose of historic artefacts at the cathedral. The battlements of the westerly towers, incomplete for several centuries, have been renewed to their original height and design, greatly improving the appearance of the outside. interim, within the build, a number of important rock monuments have been displayed to advantage. These include a possibly 7th-8th century cross-slab from Seaton ( the lone surviving attest from Aberdeen of Christianity at such an early date ) ; a rare twelfth hundred chancel cross-head ; and several well-preserved former medieval effigies of Cathedral clergy, valuable for their detail representation of contemporary preen. A luminary mod accession to the cathedral ‘s artistic treasures is a carve wooden triptych commemorating John Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen ( d. 1395 ), generator of The Brus. In 1987, bells from the deconsecrated St Stephen ‘s Church, Ealing were restored by Eayre & Smith and installed in St Machar ‘s. It is now one of the few churches in Scotland to have a set of bells designed for change ring. [ 9 ] In 2020 the cathedral embarked on a £1.85m stick out to re-slate the roof, clean the heraldic ceiling, and repair some of the stained looking glass windows. [ 10 ] Work, which was delayed by Covid-19 began mid-year and is expected to take until the end of 2020 .

Stained Glass [edit ]

Scots law and religious convention only allowed the re-introduction of tarnish glass in 1866 and there were no manufacturers then to fill the skills gap indeed the earliest windows are of English creation. The range and quality of stain methamphetamine in St Machar ‘s is especial.

The Builder Bishops window by Douglas Strachan, St Machar ‘s Cathedral

Ceiling [edit ]

Heraldic ceiling of the Cathedral The heraldic ceiling features 48 coats of arms in three rows of sixteen. Among those shown are :
The ceiling is set off by a frieze which starts at the northwest corner of the nave and lists the bishops of the go steady from Nechtan in 1131 to William Gordon at the Reformation in 1560. This is followed by the scottish monarch from Máel Coluim II to Mary, Queen of Scots .

• Royal Burgh of Aberdeen
• Charles V of Sicily
• St Margaret of Scotland
• King James V of Scotland
• Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
• christian II of Denmark
• King Henry VIII of England
• King Charles V of Spain

Internal burials [edit ]

Tomb of Henry de Lichton anterior to dismantling

external Burials [edit ]

See besides [edit ]

References [edit ]

Coordinates :