Pencil on polyester film, 1997
Survey by RCAHMS
The ‘Auld Hoose’, as it was known locally, was built as a school to educate the poor boys of Aberdeen by Robert Gordon, a wealthy Aberdeen merchant who died in 1731. Designed in a restrained classical style by William Adam, Scotland’s premier architect of the time, Robert Gordon’s is topped with an octagonal lead-covered spire.
Before the school was fully established, it was requisitioned as a base for Government troops during the suppression of the 1745 Jacobite uprising. In 1881, it became Robert Gordon's College, and is now an independent day and boarding school.
This elevation of Robert Gordon’s College, along with floor plans and details, was drawn by RCAHMS as part of a thematic survey of architecturally-significant school buildings.