Located in a municipal garden on the corner of Skene Street and Spa Street, behind Aberdeen Central Library, the Well of Spa represents a disused well-head which once stood over one of the oldest and best known of Aberdeen's mineral wells. It was gifted to the citizens of Aberdeen in 1635 by locally-born portrait painter George Jameson (1586 - 1644), who is said to have drunk the waters daily. The spa erupted from under Woolman Hill and its beneficial properties had been recognised from Mediaeval times, with its powers described in a book dating from 1580. Cups were attached by chains and it provided the principal supply of drinking water for the local people until they were connected to the public water supply.
The Spa was vulnerable to the flooding Den Burn, and was badly damaged in 1650. Rebuilt in 1670, it was lost in 1751 to be renovated 100 years later by Dr. James Gordon of Pitlurg. The gable wall of the vault which once contained the well is all that remains and this was restored by Moray Stone Cutters of Birnie in 1977.
