Dunfermline - Home of the Scottish Kings 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

If you know of Scotland then you will know how proud of our history we are. Today we are having a little explore of Dunfermline, which happens to be Scotland's newest city.

It is also the reason that the county of Fife is known as the Kingdom of Fife, and we shall briefly explore why in a wee minute.

As I alluded to, Dunfermline is in the Kingdom of Fife across the Firth of Forth from Edinurgh on the East coast of Scotland. It is easily accessible by rail or road and has a decent wee bus station with plenty of buses to Edinburgh, Glasgow and places over Fife.

We visited on the 15th of November and as you can see it was a typical Scottish autumn day. Grey skies and rain on and off!

We took the bus and alighted at the bus station before walking down the steps and reaching the High St.

Being brought up in Edinburgh I love cobbled streets especially now we don't have a car, doesn't matter about the cars suspension!

We are sticking close to the city centre today as I wanted to take a trip down memory lane.

Dunfermline is home to Dunfermline Abbey and Palace which dates back to the 1100s... Pushing a thousand years .... Yeah we are talking old.

I shall make some dedicated posts for the Abbey and the Palace at a later date.

In the meantime we shall have a quick look see as there are many sights to be seen.

Dunfermline is also home and the birthplace of Andrew Carnegie who did many good things it must be remembered.

You can see King Robert is celebrated for the hero he was.

Dunfermline Abbey has a special place in the nation’s heart. Laid to rest here are some of Scotland’s great kings and queens – including Robert the Bruce.

I am a proud member of HES Historic Environment Scotland and they look after the Palace and Abbey.

The HES website is my source of quotes in this article.

I find history fascinating and could regale with you all the details of what happened from the inception as a priory then to an abbey and finally the palace but that is for another article.

In the meantime let's soak up the 1000 year history.

That side of the palace was the nursery quarters, so imagine the delight of the wee soon to be kings seeing wildlife below their window.

Although it would probably have been red squirrels and not this grey one.

He looks like he is watching the young kings, what do you think?

Amongst the flagstones I saw a 5 pence piece!

It would not be the last!

Being Scottish and enjoying partaking in the odd tipple, I had to show you the cold cellar from the Palace!

Okay finished with the Palace now we move briefly into the Abbey.

This was quite fascinating and is how King Robert the Bruce would have looked like. There was a project with many collaborators that used facial reconstruction techniques and the exhibition is fascinating.

Being an Abbey there are stained glass windows a plenty.

Question.... Do you know what this is?

Hint it is carved into the stone...

Answer ... It is a stonemasons mark. Every stonemason had their own mark or symbol that they carved into every stone that they worked on. It was how they got paid.

The Abbey is empty so we moved through to the Kirk or Church. It is a functioning Church of Scotland parish church.

It is where my parents were married.

I was also christened here

The last time I came here a few years ago we could not get inside for some reason.

This time though we were able to, it is quite a feeling going back to something which has so much personal history.

That is the tomb of King Robert the Bruce.

I mentioned earlier that Dunfermline is close to the Firth of Forth and from the church graveyard you can see the iconic Forth Bridge which is the rail bridge!

You can also see how the Palace would have been surrounded by forests.

The war memorial was looking resplendent decked out with wreaths from the previous Sunday which was Remembrance Sunday,

Also visible is the new road crossing the Queensferry crossing.

Making our way back into town, I had to show you the second five pence piece I found!

It was great to see so many large poppies.

Lest We Forget

The woodland you saw earlier is part of Pittencrieff Park. It actually houses peacocks amongst other things and is a great way to spend a few hours.

Now a stroll up the High St.

Past the wonderful town hall which has that gorgeous clock.

The shops were all geared up for Christmas.

Not only did we have white dressed Father Christmas's but we had a ...

Scottish Santa Claus!

All this walking had made me hungry and I knew just the place.

This beautiful building was the old Linen Exchange, now though it is the best food I have had from a Wetherspoons pub!

Lucky Eddie did it again (that was my mother's nickname for me)! The Christmas menu was now on! I had to have my first roast turkey of the season!

It was a fun day out, and great to show Mrs T where I was christened after all this time.