Bede House, Old Aberdeen
During the late 18th century, Old Aberdeen Bedesmen moved from their original hospital beside St Machar's Church to the former Logan house in Don Street.
The church of St Machar, founded in the 5th century, was a centre of community life in the area of Aberdeen immediately to the south of the river Don in what is now Seaton Park.
The Bishop, whose predecessor William Elphinstone had helped found the University of Aberdeen, was a reforming cleric who took seriously his responsibilities to his flock.
In 1676, a Bailie of Old Aberdeen, William Logan, married Jean Moir of Stoneywood and as a senior member of the burgh they had built a town house on a plot of land on the East side of Don Street.
The plot was based on an existing croft of 40 roods on the east side of Don Street leading from Old Aberdeen to the Brig O’ Balgownie.
The City retained its ownership until the tenants exercised their right to buy under local government legislation in the nineteen eighties.
To the left is access to what is now cellars, the second door opens into a spiral stone staircase leading to the upper floors.
A plaque commemorating William Logan and Janet Moir is attached to the square tower above and to the right of the door.
The remnants of a beam forming the roof of the outbuilding are also visible, high in the wall of the house to the right of the square tower.
Adjacent to the Bede House on Don Street nearer the university is a low two story building.
There is evidence that this house was built from stones from the central tower at St Machar's Cathedral that fell in a storm in 1688.
June 2The Privy Council refer to "a very ancient and loveable custom" of giving a blue gown, purse and as many Scottish shillings as agreed with the years of the King's age, to men "auld puir men" as likewise agreed with the king's years and seeing it to be "very necessary and expedient that the said custom should continuit" they gave orders accordingly.The "auld puir men" so favoured were called the King's Bedesmen, notwithstanding any general enactments that might exist against mendicancy.
They were expected to requite the king's bounty by their prayers; and, doubtless as they had such an interest in the increase of his years, their intercessions for his prolonged life must have been sincere.
The distribution of the cloaks and purses used to take place on the king's birthday, at the end of the Toolbooth of Edinburgh, till a time not long gone by.
In the minutes of the Kirk Session of St Machar's Cathedral Church, for 11 February 1644, a Johone Gordone was given 6 shillings.
Latterly, the Principal of the university and the Minister of St Machar's Cathedral have until recently acted as a committee to ensure the Bedesmen were looked after.
The foundation charter of Bishop Dunbar's Hospital, dated 24 February 1531, relates that Bishop Dunbar claimed "when something is left after supplying the needs of the church and our own life, and remembering the words of Almighty God, ... give of they bread to the hungry and the poor and the wandering under the shelter of the house and clothe the naked we resolve to make a hospital".
The men were to be maintained out of the revenue of the burgh of Old Aberdeen the sum of £100 (Scots) – roughly equal to £8 in modern currency.
In the late nineteen sixties, there were only eight Bedesmen each receiving 15 shillings or £0.75 from the Church Officer of St Machar on the last Thursday of each month.
The most recent and probably only picture of the Bedesmen shows eleven gentlemen in formal suits greeting Queen Mary on a visit to St Machar's Cathedral Aberdeen on 12 September 1922.
Number 45 Spital was a leper hospital and a secret passage leading directly to the cemetery of St Peter's Church.
The similarity of the stories is coincidental – but it does indicate the way many local inhabitants built links between buildings, people and unlikely circumstances.
