Maryculter House is an historic structure along the Royal Deeside in Kincardineshire

Kincardineshire

The County of Kincardine, also known as Kincardineshire or The Mearns was a local government county on the coast of northeast Scotland...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Access to this structure is via the B9077 road

B9077 road

The B9077 road is a public highway in Aberdeenshire, Scotland that connects the city of Aberdeen to the southern part of Banchory. The two lane road lies entirely on the south side of the River Dee and in many places provides good views of that river...

. The church and graveyard

Graveyard

A graveyard is any place set aside for long-term burial of the dead, with or without monuments such as headstones...

 associated with Maryculter House are designated national monuments. A hotel in modern times, this building is erected on the site where Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

 trained circa 1227 AD. Close by to the north is where Roman

Roman army

The Roman army is the generic term for the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome , the Roman Republic , the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine empire...

 soldier

Soldier

A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

s on the Elsick Mounth

Elsick Mounth

The Elsick Mounth is an ancient trackway crossing the Grampian Mountains in the vicinity of Netherley, Scotland. This trackway was one of the few means of traversing the Grampian Mounth area in prehistoric and medieval times. The highest pass of the route is attained within the Durris Forest...

 emerged from their march from Raedykes

Raedykes

Raedykes is the site of a Roman marching camp located just over 3 miles NW of Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. National Grid Reference NO 842902...

 to cross the River Dee

River Dee, Aberdeenshire

The River Dee is a river in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It rises in the Cairngorms and flows through Strathdee to reach the North Sea at Aberdeen...

, on the northern bank of which the Normandykes

Normandykes

Normandykes is the site of a Roman marching camp to the southwest of Peterculter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The near-rectangular site, measuring approximately , covers about of the summit and eastern slopes of a hill overlooking the River Dee and the B9077 road further south. Aerial photographs...

 Roman Camp stands. Its former park land is now Templars' Park Scout Campsite.

Early history

Traces of early peoples from the Stone Age to the Iron Age has been found in and around the Templars' park area. The first recorded "camper" in the Templars' Park district was the Roman Emperor, Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...

. He visited the area in the year A.D.210 during a large-scale raid which extended northwards as far as the Moray Firth. The Roman Legions forded the River Dee at Tilbouries, just west of Templars' Park, and on the high ground on the north bank of the river built a great marching-camp capable of accommodating 12,000 men. This Roman camp-site is known as Normandykes

Normandykes

Normandykes is the site of a Roman marching camp to the southwest of Peterculter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The near-rectangular site, measuring approximately , covers about of the summit and eastern slopes of a hill overlooking the River Dee and the B9077 road further south. Aerial photographs...

 and its outline can still be traced.

The Templar Connection

Lying along both banks of the River Dee, the Lands of Culter originally included the parishes of Peterculter

Peterculter

Peterculter , also known as Culter, is a suburb of Aberdeen, Scotland approximately eight miles inland from Aberdeen city centre. Peterculter is situated along the northern banks of the River Dee in the vicinity of the confluences with Crynoch Burn and Leuchar Burn...

 and Maryculter. However, about the year 1187, King William the Lion (William I of Scotland

William I of Scotland

William the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...

) granted part of the Culter lands—the portion lying on the south bank of the river—to the Knights Templar, the part on the north bank being then possessed by the Durward family, the hereditary Door-wards to the Kings of Scotland.

Between the years 1221 and 1236, Walter Bisset of Aboyne founded a Preceptory for the Knights Templar on their Culter property and here, in 1287-88, the Templars built a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sometime before this date, a church was built on the Durward's lands on the north bank of the river and this was dedicated to St. Peter. Hence today, there are two adjacent parishes separated by the River Dee—Peterculter in Aberdeenshire and Maryculter in Kincardineshire.
Very little documentary evidence has survived of the Templars' activities at Maryculter but in the Trial of the Templars held in the Abbey of Holyrood, Edinburgh, in November, 1309, the name of William de Middleton of the "tempill house of Culther" is recorded.

The ruins of St Marys, the 13th century chapel built by the Knights Templar, lie within the old parish kirk-yard near Maryculter House. Originally a Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 structure of considerable refinement, it is now a fragmentary ruin, the only architectural feature extant being the piscina

Piscina

A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. Roman Catholics usually refer to the drain, and by extension, the basin, as the sacrarium...

 built into the south wall. It was used as the parish church until 1780.

The Maryculter property of the Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

, extending to some 8500 acres (34.4 km²), was eventually conferred upon the Knights Hospitallers. Both the Templars and the Hospitallers proved to be excellent landlords at Maryculter, their combined laird-ship extending over three centuries. When the Knights Hospitallers finally abandoned Maryculter in 1548 there were only six knights and a chaplain remaining in residence.

Although the Knights of St. John were in possession of Maryculter for over two centuries, little tangible evidence survives. The barrel-vaulted basement of the adjacent old House of Maryculter is said to have formed part of the Preceptor

Preceptor

A preceptor is a teacher responsible to uphold a certain law or tradition, a precept.-Christian military orders:A preceptor was historically in charge of a preceptory, the headquarters of certain orders of monastic Knights, such as the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar, within a given...

's Lodging.

More Recent Owners

About the year 1618, the Lands of Maryculter were purchased by John Menzies of Pitfodels. The Menzies family, who had been tenants of Maryculter since 1548, were closely associated with the civic life of Aberdeen. In 1426, Gilbert Menzies was Provost of the city and thereafter a Menzies occupied the civic chair so frequently that in the following two hundred years, the combined provost-ships of the Menzies family amounted to 112 years.

In 1811, Maryculter was acquired by General the Hon. William Gordon of Fyvie, a son of the second Earl of Aberdeen. The Gordons remained at Maryculter until 1935 when the Estate was broken up, the home-park being purchased by the City of Aberdeen Boy Scouts' Association.