Ranking Cathedrals, Part 2.

Next up is St Machar's Cathedral in Aberdeen. 

Photo credit: AlasdairW under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Again this is Church of Scotland building, so no bishop, not really a cathedral, but it used to be one. Like St Moluag's, it is a remnant of larger building.  This time the nave and aisles remain. The transepts, central tower and choir are mostly gone.  The transept ruins contain some late medieval bishop's tombs, and the nave and aisles are mostly original.  The 16th century ceiling of the nave has a unique heraldic display with 48 coats of arms, including those of most of the monarchs of Europe at the time, as well prominent Scottish families and churchmen.  The west end has two massive fortified towers.

This place is of some interest to me, especially the heraldic ceiling. It doesn't have enough interest to draw me to Aberdeen on it's own, and I'm not even sure it would make the cut if I had other things to see in Aberdeen, but it would be worth seeing.

Obviously this ranks higher than St Moluag's so the list as it stands now is. 

1.  St Machar's Cathedral, Aberdeen

2.  St Moluag's Cathedral, Lismore.

The final of the first three in the next post.