St Machar's Cathedral Transepts

PricingFreeFree for all visitors

Free entry for everyone

Entry

Free for everyone

Pricing details

Free entry for everyone; no membership card is needed.

ParkingParking not known

The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.

Parking details

Historic Scotland names no parking; the cathedral congregation says there is adequate parking in the Chanonry along two sides of the graveyard, charged between 10am and 4pm on weekdays at very low rates, with a three-hour limit on the council bays. No tariff is published, so the status is recorded as unknown. Seaton Park's car park is about 300 m north.

Driving pin: the cathedral's entrance on the Chanonry, 28 m from Historic Scotland's own pin on the transepts. Buses 1, 2 and 19 from the city centre stop at St Machar Drive and the 20 at the Old Town House; Historic Scotland says the site is accessible by public transport.

About

St Machar's was the cathedral of the medieval diocese of Aberdeen. When the crossing tower collapsed in 1688 it destroyed the choir, presbytery and transepts, leaving the aisled nave of the 1300s to serve as the parish church of Old Aberdeen, which the Church of Scotland still opens daily beneath its heraldic ceiling of 1520 with 48 coats of arms. Historic Scotland cares for the roofless transepts and crossing to the east, in the churchyard beside Seaton Park, and their fine late-medieval tombs: Bishop Gavin Dunbar lies under an arch of blind arcading and square flowers with his effigy, an unidentified bishop beside him, and Bishop Henry Lichton's tomb chest stands in the north transept, St John's Aisle. Reviewers come for the ceiling and the stained glass inside, roam the old gravestones and walk on into Seaton Park next door. Dogs other than assistance dogs are not allowed.

ClosedPick a day for times and prices

Until 31 Oct: Daily 09:30–16:30
1 Nov–31 Mar: Daily 10:00–16:00
From 1 Apr: Daily 09:30–16:30

Today, Saturday 24 October

St Machar's Cathedral Transepts09:30 – 16:30

Free entry

Opening times may change at short notice.

Historic Scotland's transepts: 1 April to 31 October daily 9.30am to 4.30pm; 1 November to 31 March daily 10am to 4pm; no closures or notices on 20 October 2026. The Church of Scotland opens the nave Monday to Saturday on the same hours and on Sundays from 12.30pm to 5pm, with services every Sunday at 11am and 6pm and at Christmas and in Holy Week; weddings and funerals can close it.

The church gives each visitor a printed guided tour and has a touch-screen display and a small shop; its toilets are very limited, with one for wheelchair users in an adjacent building. The churchyard is maintained by Aberdeen City Council. Historic Scotland lists no facilities of its own.

Photo: The roofless south transept of St Machar's Cathedral, with medieval wall tombs and Bishop Dunbar's tomb under its glass canopy. Tom Parnell, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Machar%27s,_Aberdeen_(53434008120).jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.