Dunfermline Abbey and Palace

Dunfermline’s story stretches back to the 11th century – the time of Malcolm III and his queen, Margaret. Their son, David I, raised the status of the little priory to abbey in the 12th century. He endowed it richly, and brought stonemasons from Durham Cathedral to build it.

The abbey church is famous as the mausoleum of Margaret (later canonised as St Margaret), David I and Robert I. 

Late on in its history, the abbey guesthouse range became a royal palace, along with some additional buildings. The ill-fated Charles I was born here in 1600.

In 1070, Margaret founded a priory in Dunfermline on the site where she had married Malcolm III. She introduced a small community of Benedictine monks from Canterbury, and so laid the foundations of the first Benedictine house in Scotland.

David I made the priory an abbey in 1128. He had a new church built on a grand scale, of which the magnificent nave survives. The Romanesque pillars are similar to those of Durham Cathedral, and it’s likely that the same masons carved them.

In 1250, St Margaret’s remains were moved to an elaborate shrine at the east end of the church.

After the Protestant Reformation in 1560, the nave was converted into a parish kirk for the people of Dunfermline. The old choir was allowed to collapse. 

A new parish church was built on the site of the choir between 1818 and 1821. The Abbey Church houses the tomb of Robert I and the other royals buried here, and is home to an active Church of Scotland congregation.

Six things you might not know about St Margaret

After Edward I badly damaged Dunfermline Abbey in 1303, Robert I financed its rebuilding. It was a move that showed confidence in the affluence and self-reliance of his kingdom following the Wars of Independence with England.

The most impressive of the new buildings was the monks’ refectory, a soaring structure with an elaborate façade, which took full advantage of the sloping site.

Robert I was interred before the high altar in 1329. His heart was taken on crusade before eventually being buried at Melrose Abbey.

The question of what Bruce might have looked like has been pondered by historians and scientists for centuries. In 2024, on the 750th anniversary of Bruce’s birth, Dunfermline Abbey was the fitting venue for the display of a previously unseen 3D model of Bruce's face, built using advanced facial reconstruction techniques and CGI technology,

Read more about the many faces of Robert the Bruce

Medieval abbeys typically had several grades of accommodation, and it’s likely that the guesthouse was a royal residence right from the start.

After the Reformation, a new palace was created out of the guesthouse and the west range of the abbey. Dunfermline Palace became the personal residence of James VI’s queen, Anna of Denmark.

The future Charles I was born here in 1600, the last monarch to be born in Scotland. Royal interest in Dunfermline waned when James and Anna left for London in 1603, and the palace fell into disrepair.

In 2025, we carried out high-level masonry inspections to review the condition of the historic stone work at Dunfermline Abbey.

Specialist teams with a head for heights used a number of different methods to access the abbey's towering spire to carefully check masonry by hand. This included abseiling and deploying a 73-metre Mobile Elevating Work Platform, or MEWP.

At roughly 40 metres high, the abbey's spire was one of the tallest structures inspected as part of the nationwide programme.

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