'Excavations at the Abbot's House, Dunfermline'

Excavations at the Abbot's House, Maygate, Dunfermline Russel Coleman with contributions by Adrian Cox, Derek Hall, Catherine Smith, Richard Fawcett, Nicholas Holmes, Paul Harrison and Alan Fairweather Location and description (Illus 1) The lie of the land has largely shaped the develop- Information Board to a heritage centre prompted ment of medieval Dunfermline. Overlooking the an archaeological response. Planned refurbishment Firth of Forth, with an excellent view across to works on the ground floor of the house comprised Edinburgh, it stands on rising ground, some 5 km the reduction of the existing floor levels to inland from the Firth of Forth. The main streets accommodate wheelchair access, a new damp- extend along, and connect with, a series of narrow course and under-floor heating system and the terraces that gradate from the north down to the insertion of new services. As a result, up to 0.5m abbey in the south, and beyond. High Street, the of archaeological deposits were under threat. main thoroughfare of the town, occupies the Similarly, landscaping was to affect c 0.5m across central terrace, with Maygate skirting along the the garden. Financial constraints focused archae- terrace below. The Abbots House still stands in ological work on those areas directly at risk, but the shadow of the great abbey and is the oldest there was an opportunity to excavate slightly surviving secular building within the town (Can- deeper in the garden. mores Tower is older, being 14th century or In conjunction with the excavation, a standing earlier in date, but lies just outwith the town in building survey was carried out by the Royal Pittencrief Park). Situated on the south side of Commission on the Ancient and Historical Maygate, it fronts directly onto the street. Here, Monuments of Scotland and research into the Maygate appears to curve around the house, history of the Abbots House was undertaken by perhaps deliberately, hinting at the complex the Dunfermline Heritage Trust. The archaeolog- relationship between these, two of the oldest sur- ical work was funded by Fife Regional Council, viving features of the medieval townscape. Historic Scotland, Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and The outward appearance of the building is of Dunfermline District Council, with grant aid from a late 16th century private dwelling house, the the European Regional Redevelopment Fund. walled garden to the south and west of the house backing directly onto the cemetery of the abbey. Early history of the Abbots House Formerly, the house would have stood at the edge (Illus 2) of the medieval abbey precinct, which, since the Reformation, has gradually been infilled. In its Documentary research by the Dunfermline existing form, the house stands as the end pro- Heritage Trust has revealed that the name Abbots duct of several phases of building, spanning five House was only given to the property in the 19th centuries, the most recent of which is the newly century (Torrie et al 1994, 19). The earliest opened Abbot House heritage centre. reference to the property dates to 1550, when the house was in the ownership of William Coupar, The development Burgh Treasurer. It was in 1570, however, when James Murray of Perdieu purchased the property, The conversion of the house from a doctors that the first of many phases of building alterations surgery and temporary home of the local Tourist and additions was recorded. This late 16th century Tayside and Fife Archaeological journal, vol 2 (1996),70-112 Russel Coleman 71 II 1. S . house appears to have taken the form of a small later seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth Z-plan tower-house, though not strictly speaking centuries saw various additions to the house, a tower-house, comprising Areas 3 and 4 with extending it westwards, eastwards and north- stair-towers at the north-west and south-east wards along and eventually out onto the Maygate respectively. By the early 17th century, the itself. property was in the ownership of the Earls of Dunfermline, and referred to as the Great Ludging. One of the few stone buildings in the Early history of the abbey and burgh of town, its thick stone walls and slate roof saved it Dunfermline (Illus 1) from a fire which swept Dunfermline in 1624 and Malcolm Canmore (Malcolm 111, 1058-1093) which largely destroyed the rest of the town. The married the Saxon Margaret, sister of Edgar the 72 The Abbot's House, Dunfermline Illus 2. Dunfermline in the 15th century. Atheling (prince), who had fled to Scotland after date no earlier than the 14th century (DES 1989, William I had taken control of northern England 16). On Margarets request, three Benedictine (Lynch 1992, 75). The wedding took place no later monks were sent to Dunfermline from Canterbury than 1071, probably in Dunfermline (Duncan 1975, to form the core of a small priory, perhaps based at 119). By this time, Dunfermline already appears to an existing church (Fawcett 1990, 4). The priory that have been an established royal centre. The remains Margaret had founded was extended and elevated of a fortified enclosure (NT 0877 8731, not il- to the status of an abbey by the youngest of her six lustrated) perched on a rocky outcrop in Pitten- sons, David I (1124-1153), who, from Canterbury, crieff Park (Canmores Tower) is traditionally brought Geoffrey in 1128 to become its first abbot thought to have been Malcolms royal residence, (ibid, 6). By now the abbey had also become a though recent excavations there could attribute a royal burial place. One of the greatest of the Russel Coleman 73 Illus 3. Trench location. religious houses, its wealth and status greatly grew, however, the extensive land enclosed by the increased in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. monastic community forced settlement up onto a The granting of burgh status to Dunfermline series of narrow terraces to the north. By the 15th remains incompletely understood. The earliest century, the town plan was much as it is today, settlement is thought to have been sited close to with Hiegait or Causegait (now High Street) the the royal residence in Pittencrieff Park, on the principal street. Unusually, Dunfermline had a western side of the Tower Burn, but was probably linear, rather than an open market, because of the no more than a small huddle of timber huts during narrowness of the terrace, the market cross itself Malcolm and Margarets time (Torrie et al 1994, 6). standing approximately midway along its length Whether it was this settlement that received David (Torrie et al 1994, 8). The tolbooth stood at the Is royal burgh status is unclear, as there is western end of Hiegait. Maygate together with evidence to suggest that there was a second settle- Abbot Street and Canmore Street (formerly known ment in place during the 12th century on the as in between the was) mark the former northern eastern side of the Tower Burn, clustered around boundary of the abbey precinct. the boundary walls of the abbey precinct. The earlier of the two settlements appears to have Archaeological background failed by the end of the 12th century, for perhaps two reasons (Duncan 1975,472-3). Firstly, the Small-scale trial excavations were carried out by abbatial settlement, fuelled by providing goods SUAT Ltd in the garden of the house in 1988. The and services to the increasingly wealthy abbey, wall-footings and floor surfaces of a Victorian prospered at the expense of the earlier settlement, building were found adjacent to the west gable and secondly, Inverkeithings market, at the wall of the house, and the discovery of fragments junction of routes from Perth and eastern Fife to of disarticulated human bone in the southern area the Queens Ferry, proved the more attractive of of the garden suggested that the abbey cemetery the two. may have once extended as far north as the house. The core of the abbatial settlement is likely to Medieval pottery was also recovered from the have been concentrated along present day St garden soils, and the quantity of iron slag retrieved Catherines Wynd, Maygate and Kirkgate. As it indicated possible metal-working in the area. A 74 The Abbot's House, Dunfermline Illus 4. Phase 1. further opportunity for trial work, in early 1992, late 16th century building works had incorporated revealed a substantial, east to west aligned stone- the shell of the earlier building, known to have built drain 1.8m below the existing ground surface been standing, albeit in poor condition, in 1550. in the south-eastern corner of the garden. The architectural style of the first-floor window At approximately the same time, refurbishment dates this facade wall to the late medieval period, work inside the house exposed a previously un- probably the 15th century. More importantly, known, east to west aligned facade wall, complete perhaps, the ecclesiastical style of the window, with windows and doorways at ground level, similar to those found in churches and abbeys, which, on closer inspection was also found to suggests that this building could after all have contain a distinctive, traceried window on first been the house of the Abbot of Dunfermline, as the floor level. It thus appeared that the documented Victorians had suggested. Russel Coleman 75 The excavation (Illus 3) The principal objectives of the excavation were to investigate the structural development of the building and its relationship to the Maygate street frontage; identify any pre-Abbots House activity; confirm whether the presence of human remains related to changes in the northern boundary of the abbey cemetery; use the results of the excavation to comple- ment the restoration work. Initially, work began in March 1992 as a watch- ing brief with limited excavation.

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