Netherkirkgate
PLAQUE076
DescriptionNETHERKIRKGATE although the first reference to Netherkirkgate, or 'Lower Church Road', dates from 1382, it may be on the line of Vicus Franxini or 'Way of the Ash Tree', which is the earliest recorded street in Aberdeen (1212). Netherkirkgate incorporated one of the Burgh's six ports, or lockable gates.HistoryNetherkirkgate, or Lower Church Road, is perhaps the oldest street in Aberdeen. A version of the street is mentioned in a charter dated 1212 as the Vicus Fraxini, or Way of the Ash Tree. The more modern name emerged in the 14th century. Until the 19th century this was one of the main thoroughfares of Aberdeen providing access to the Burgh Church, St Nicholas. The street was lined with town houses in the medieval period and was the site of one of the town's ports (lockable gates). Today Netherkirkgate extending into Carnegie's Brae runs underneath Union Street to provide access to the Green.
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In the sense that is used here gate it derives from Gata, an old Norse word meaning the way to' or street'. In this sense the meaning of Netherkirkgate is the Lower Road leading to the Church. In Aberdeen there is also Upperkirkgate; most other Scottish cities of medieval date have similar names.
Netherkirkgate has a claim to be the oldest named street in Aberdeen. In a charter dated 1212, recorded in the Chartulary of the Abbey of Arbroath, one Gilber Stute, burgess of Aberdeen, and his wife Emma were described as having a piece of land lying in the Vicus Fraxini. From the description of physical factors on the street in the charter it seems clear that the Way of the Ash Tree is what we would call Netherkirkgate. The term Kirkgate is first used sometime later in 1311, but without sufficient evidence to distinguish between the Upper or Nether Kirkgates. It is in fact in 1382 that we have the first surviving recorded use of the exact term Netherkirkgate, although the street is clearly one of the very oldest in the history of Aberdeen.
In the medieval period, and beyond, Netherkirkgate was one of the principle thoroughfares of Aberdeen and was the site of many prestigious townhouses. One of these was the so-called Wallace Tower, built by Sir Robert Keith of Benholm, a younger brother of the Earl Marischal, who had founded Marischal College. Keith bought the land on which the house originally sat in 1588 and the house was built shortly afterwards. In 1965 the area was developed, and a large department store built on the site of the House. The tower was removed from its original site and moved to a park in the north of the city (Seaton Park, off Tillydrone Road) where it was reconstructed'.
Netherkirkgate was also the site of one of the town's ports (lockable gates): in this sense the term port derives from the French porte for door. On 7 June 1588 the baillies and council, convened at the port and convicted Duncan Donaldson, younger, of unauthorised alterations to the port. Donaldson owned a tenement of foreland lying immediately next to the port and had built a stair from the ground up to his property: the stair ran up the side of the port's wall. Duncan was accused of altering the stane wall of the said port at his awin hand, and making his windois and eismentis thairin…' Having found him guilty of this they ordered that he was to 'mend and reforme the batteling of the said poirt…'
The use of the street as a thoroughfare effectively ended with the laying out of Union Street in the early 19th century. The street itself does continue under Union Street by way of Carnegie's Brae, named after James Carnegie, an early to mid-18th century litster (or dyer). In 1992 numbers 16-18, on the north side or Netherkirkgate, were excavated. The excavation recovered a considerable amount of organic material and found evidence of wooden medieval buildings associated with the back lands of the tenements of land on the street.
Location Info49, Netherkirkgate
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