St.Machar's Cathedral, Aberdeen, however, also once had three spires.

doriccolumns.wordpress.com/religion/st-...

"So feeling that he had nothing to do and only one thing to think about, he wandered further through the old burgh, past the lingering fragment of its once mighty cathedral, and down to the bridge which, with its one Gothic arch as old as the youth of Chaucer, spanned the channel..."

Those words of MacDonald's remind me very much of these verses of #Milton from #ParadiseLost, Book 3, vv.572-87:

"...As he approached the granite cathedral, the only one in the world, I presume, its stern solidity, so like the country and its men, laid hold of his imagination for the first time... The whole aspect of the building is an outcome, an absolute blossom of the northern nature...

George MacDonald, Scottish author from Huntly, Aberdeenshire (1824-1905), influenced many later writers, including Chesterton, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Friend of Ruskin and Lewis Carroll.

Wrote fantasy and realistic fiction, including in Scots dialect, theological works and poetry.