Both sides now

Another damn fine sunny day in this North East part of Scotland.
Sitting in my taxi in Old Aberdeen, out side the St. Macahar bar waiting for my fare, I decided to snap the view to the front and to the rear. The leftside image is of the Old Aberdeen Town House, The Old Town House was the original home of the Burgh's local government, completed in 1789. It was originally the centrepoint for trading in Old Aberdeen (still discernible in the widening of the street to accommodate trading booths), and the mercat cross (head late medieval, shaft more recent) stands outside it. The building is built of granite and is of restrained but elegant early Georgian design, with a fine cupola above the façade. It was acquired by the university in recent years, and was renovated in 2005.

Old Aberdeen is part of the city of Aberdeen in Scotland. Old Aberdeen was originally a separate burgh, which was erected into a burgh of barony on 26 December 1489. It was incorporated into adjacent Aberdeen by Act of Parliament in 1891. It retains the status of a community council area.
The town's motto is "concordia res parvae crescunt" ("through harmony, small things increase").
It is very much an area of the university now. The university is the third oldest in Scotland (1495) and the 5th oldest in the U.K and the wider English speaking world.
Old Aberdeen was an important political, ecclesiastical and cultural center since the Late Middle Ages. From the 13th century it was the location of the Doctors of Aberdeen, a powerful group of church bishops, who made many of the executive decisions pertaining to church and state relations. In the 1630s the Covenanters challenged the Doctors of Aberdeen by holding a meeting in Muchalls Castle and responding to certain letters issued by the doctors, thus setting the stage for later military engagements; namely, William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal and the Marquess of Montrose led a Covenanter army of 9000 men in the first battle of the Civil War in 1639 by marching over the Causey Mounth to attack forces at the Bridge of Dee, effectively gaining control of Aberdeen.




It was originally called Seatown, because the bit of Aberdeen that is the old city, is The Green area, now called the Merchant Quarter.