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Site of 'Mars Castle', also known as the 'Old Castle', which was a strong and substantial building, thought to have been constructed in the late 16th century, and believed to have been the residence of the Earls of Mar during the 17th century. It was demolished in the late 19th century. Remains of walls were noted on the site in 1866, but these were not thought to be strong enough to have belonged to the castle. The building is known to have been considerably altered in the mid 19th century to form shops and houses. Unfortunately very little can be said with any accuracy concerning the history of this fascinating building. In general it was an excellent example of a later medieval/early modern Scottish town house. Its projecting staircase turret and gabled tower are entirely characteristic of Scottish urban architecture of that period. Its similarity to both Provost Ross' House (now part of Aberdeen Maritime Museum) and George Jameson's house (in Schoolhill, now demolished) have led to it being suggested that this was the work of Andrew Jameson, the master mason responsible for the last two buildings and father of George Jameson, the portrait painter. Unfortunately there are no documents, which have yet come to light, which have any bearing on the question of who built this town house or indeed when. It has been by A.M.Munro in his 'Old Landmarks of Aberdeen' that the building dates from 1494, however this appears to be wrong based on a number of reports that a skewputt on a front gable was dated 1595. It has also been stated that other skewputts were adorned with the initials 'T.R.'. The date of these initials and their significance are unfortunately lost. The building itself was 'L' shaped and the roof covered with red pantiles. It had its own close, Reid's Court, which led to a garden, which at one time (no doubt later in the 17th or 18th centuries) had a summer house. The house also had two tenements of foreland and one of inland. It has been said that it was built as the townhouse of the Earls of Mar, hence part of its name, however, there is no historical evidence to connect this house to the earl's although that does not mean that it was never the case. MacGibbon and Ross in Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland (1892) suggested that it was the Bishop's Palace', however the building generally understood to be the bishop's palace was in fact located in Old Aberdeen to the east of St Machar's Cathedral. However an association with an episcopal residence cannot be entirely ruled out in the Royal Burgh (New Aberdeen). There is evidence that a number of Aberdeen's bishops lodged in New Aberdeen. For example, Spalding wrote in his History of the Trubles 'bischop Bellenden cam [Saturday 19 May 1639] peirtlie to his lodging in New Abirdein with his ordinor servandis; syne vpone the morne cam over to the Oldtoun to sie his owne pallace.'. Perhaps MacGibbon and Ross had picked up on an old tradition associating a house in New Aberdeen with the bishop. This connection with an episcopal palace has also been suggested for George Jamesone's house on Schoolhill. Incidentally both Jameson's house and Mar's 'castle' have both been cited as where Samuel Rutherford, the Covenanter, lived when he was banished to Aberdeen. Munro reported that Mar's castle was altered, considerably, in 1836. He noted that the lower floor was completely modernised and given over to shops whilst 'what remained' of the corbelled mouldings had been hidden by successive coats of harling. It was demolished in 1897 as part of a council plan to 'improve the amenity of the Gallowgate'; an account of the building at this time is given in the Aberdeen Journal of 6 January 1897. Thus it was demolished at the same time as many of the other fine medieval and early modern townhouses of Aberdeen.
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Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Aberdeen City
HER -
NJ90NW0071 - MAR'S CASTLE