We visited Dunfermline Palace the other day. You know what it’s like, you go and visit far-flung places of interest and never get around to visiting those ones more or less on your doorstep. We were given membership of Historic Scotland by our sons for Christmas so we took the first opportunity to use it after New Year.

The palace is right next to Dunfermline Abbey but I’ll blog about that another day. Both buildings date back to around about 1070. At this time I believe that Dunfermline was the capital of Scotland, it hasn’t always been Edinburgh.

As you can see it’s really just a ruin, but for those of us with an imagination it’s still well worth a visit.

I did see a comment online that it wasn’t very interesting, but I think that was harsh. I enjoyed looking around it even although it was a dreich winter’s day and it was sleeting off and on.

There are bits and pieces of ancient stonework on display which has obviously been found around the site, as well as information boards explaining exactly who lived and died there.

Charles I was born in the palace and Robert the Bruce is buried in the nearby abbey church but I won’t be able to blog about that until it is opened again during the week. During the winter the abbey church is only open for church services.

The first line of the poem Sir Patrick Spens refers to Dunfermline as the capital. You can read it here.