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Museums and history
in Aberdeen.

It’s 20:05 in Aberdeen.
Aberdeen

The Granite Mile and a crowned chapel.

Aberdeen's history is written in its granite, and much of it can be read on a walk. Union Street, the Granite Mile, runs from the Castlegate, where a mercat cross of 1686 carries a unicorn. Under its arches lies the Green, where people worked flint some eight thousand years ago. Marischal College rises in Gothic pinnacles on Broad Street, and in Old Aberdeen a chapel of 1509 wears a stone crown on its tower. Further north, a single pointed arch of about 1320 leaps the Don. An audio walk tells the city's darker tales on your phone. Wear comfortable shoes, as the cobbles are uneven.

Marischal College→
Marischal Square→
The Gordon Highlanders Museum→
Crime and Punishment Tour→
King’s College→
Mercat Cross→
Union Street→
The Green→
Aberdeen Maritime Museum→
Brig o' Balgownie→
Aberdeen Town House→
Place of the day18 hours ago

Aberdeen Maritime Museum.

Aberdeen's free museum of the sea on Shiprow, in a 16th-century house and an old church, from clipper ships and fishing to a nine-metre model of an oil platform.

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Newly discovered16 hours agoAberdeenThe Owl at Number TwoAttractionAberdeenshireGroundedAttractionAberdeenMount CafeCafeAberdeenSea Salt + Sole, Cove BayRestaurantAberdeenSea Salt + Sole, DyceRestaurantAberdeenSea Salt + Sole, Bridge of DonRestaurant

Some good places to go, newly added to the site.

The newest places on our pages in Aberdeen.

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From our guide15 hours ago

Marischal Square.

Marischal Square is the newest corner of the old town, finished in 2017 opposite Marischal College, with cafés, a hotel and gardens. The reason to come is the much older house it was built around. Provost Skene's House goes back to at least 1545 and is the oldest surviving townhouse in Aberdeen. Since 2021 it has told the stories of famous people from the city and the north-east, room by room, and entry is free. Look for the painted gallery ceiling of the 1620s, hidden behind boards for years and found again in the 1950s.

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Lunch13 hours agoAberdeenKilau Coffee200 yardsAberdeenSt Machar Bar300 yardsAberdeenGrub Old Aberdeen400 yards

Lunch near King’s College.

The three closest tables: Kilau Coffee, St Machar Bar and Grub Old Aberdeen.

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From our guide12 hours ago

Union Street.

Aberdonians call it the Granite Mile. Union Street runs straight and wide for about a mile from the Castlegate to Holburn Junction, and it was a bold piece of planning when work began around 1800. Houses were pulled down, a hill was levelled, and the Denburn valley was crossed on a single great granite arch, the Union Bridge. Walk it end to end, past the Town House, the columned screen of the Kirk of St Nicholas and the grand old banks. Go in the early evening, when low sun turns the granite silver.

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From our guide10 hours ago

The Green.

Most people cross over the Green on Union Street without knowing it is there. Go down the steps or the cobbled lane of Correction Wynd and you find one of the oldest corners of Aberdeen. Archaeologists have found flint worked here some eight thousand years ago. In the Middle Ages this was the road into town from the south, with two friaries, a market, craftsmen and brewers. Today it is a quiet cobbled street of old granite buildings, cafés and street art, a good place to wander away from the shops overhead.

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From our guide9 hours ago

Aberdeen Central Library.

On Rosemount Viaduct, three granite buildings stand in a row: a library, a church and a theatre. Aberdonians have long called them Education, Salvation and Damnation, and the Central Library is the first. Andrew Carnegie, who paid part of the cost, opened it in 1892. It is a working library and free to walk into. Its local collection of old maps, newspapers and thousands of photographs of the city is a good place to start if you are tracing a family. From the steps, look along the viaduct to the green dome of St Mark's.

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From our guide7 hours ago

Marischal College.

Nothing in Aberdeen stops you in your tracks quite like the front of Marischal College. Its wall of pale granite rises in pinnacles and spires so fine they look like lace, and it is the second largest granite building in the world. The college was founded in 1593 as the city's second university, and it joined King's College in 1860. The great front was finished in 1906, and since 2011 it has been the home of the city council. Stand across Broad Street to take it all in, with Robert the Bruce on horseback at its foot.

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From our guide5 hours ago

Crime and Punishment Tour.

This self-guided walk tells five hundred years of Aberdeen's darker stories, played on your phone through the VoiceMap app as you reach each spot. It was made by the local guides of Scot Free Tours. Starting outside the old Tolbooth, it winds for about three kilometres past the Mercat Cross and Marischal College to the kirkyard of St Nicholas, with tales of witch trials, beheadings and bodysnatchers along the way. Allow about forty-five minutes, more with stops, and set off early enough to find the kirkyard open.

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From our guide2 hours ago

Brig o' Balgownie.

In a wooded dip at the northern edge of Old Aberdeen, a single pointed arch of stone leaps the River Don. The Brig o' Balgownie was finished around 1320, and for centuries it was the main road north out of the city. Tradition says it was built by Robert the Bruce, by Bishop Cheyne, or by both. The cobbled deck is barely three metres wide and climbs gently to the crown. Byron, who went to school in Aberdeen, remembered Balgounie's brig's black wall in Don Juan. Riverside paths lead from here down to Donmouth and the sea.

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From our guide1 hour ago

Mercat Cross.

In the middle of the Castlegate stands the town's Mercat Cross, built in 1686 by John Montgomery. It is more pavilion than cross, with a ring of open arches carrying a parapet of carved panels and shields, and a slender shaft topped by a unicorn holding the royal arms. For centuries this was where the town met. Markets gathered round it, news and laws were cried from it, and punishments were carried out in front of it. When a new monarch comes to the throne, the proclamation is still read out here.

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