River Dee Aberdeen
The River Don and the River Dee flow into the North Sea about two miles apart. Over the past 1500 years the angle between them has slowly been developed into Scotland's third city, Aberdeen. The original settlement, often referred to as Aberdon, lay at the northern end of today's city, on the south bank of the River Don. This probably existed in Roman times and stayed in use after they briefly passed through in AD 84 (see our Historical Timeline). Certainly there was a settlement here that was sacked and burned by marauding Danes in the 900s. This area is now better known as Old Aberdeen or Aulton ("Old Town"). It was David I who created "New Aberdeen" in 1136. Aberdeen grew quickly in size and in importance. It gained a castle before the end of the 1100s, a leper house in 1197; a market in 1222, a friary by 1240, a grammar school by 1250, a second religious community by 1270, and a hospital by 1300. The city saw bad times as well as good. There were two serious fires in the 1200s. The castle was destroyed, and its English defenders killed, by Robert the Bruce in 1308. Edward III of England badly damaged Aberdeen in 1336, and the black death arrived in 1350. Worse followed three hundred years later. By 1639 Aberdeen was the second largest city in Scotland after Edinburgh. But in that year it was occupied by five separate armies in quick succession. In 1644 the Marquis of Montrose's army killed 160 Aberdeen residents. And then, in 1646, a quarter of the population was killed by the plague. But after each setback Aberdeen first recovered and then resumed its steady growth. The real cause of this growth lay in its importance as a port. This dated back as far as its use by Romans to support their army at the time of the battle of Mons Graupius. By 1300 Aberdeen was an important wool exporting port, and had established strong trading links with Germany and the Baltic. It also featured increasingly as a port for the shipment of goods around the coast of Britain and t
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Keywords: boats, city, coast, commerce, community, developments, east, fishing, gas, grampian, harbour, industry, moorings, north, oil, places, region, sea, sheltered, travel
