James Melvin; Rector of the Grammar School of Aberdeen - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895. Excerpt: ... The Schoolhill in Aberdeen, a street of oldish houses, derived its name from its containing the public Grammar School of the town. There had been a Grammar School in the burgh, on or near this same site, for centuries; and in the records of the town frequent mention is made of this School, and of the names of its masters. Its most noted benefactor, in later days, had been Dr. Patrick Dun, Principal of Marischal College, in the first half of the seventeenth century. How many successive buildings of older make had served for the school before Dr. Dun's time, or what sort of building it was lodged in when he took interest in it, I B can only vaguely guess through fancy, and through such occasional entries in the burgh accounts as that of a sum of £38 5s. 6d., in or about the year IS97, for "thecking the Grammar School with hedder." The School in my time was a plain, dingy building, which had been erected, I believe, in 1757, and which, if it was superior to some of its predecessors in not being thatched with heather, but slated and quite weather-tight, was certainly nothing to look at architecturally. Within a gateway and iron-railed wall, separating the School from the street, and forming a very limited playground in front, you saw a low main building of a single storey, parallel with the street, and having a door with stone steps in the middle, and windows at the sides; and from this main building there projected towards the street two equally low wings, forming the two junior class-rooms. Two similar wings, which you could not well see from the street, projected from the main building behind, and accommodated the senior classes. The only entrance to the two back class-rooms was through the public school; the two front class-rooms might also be entere...