Dunfermline

 

Dunfermline town hall from the graveyard

Autumnal days are here and I decided it was time to consider replacing an 8-year-old car and test drive an electric car.  The shortage of cars for test drives in the central belt also meant we had to travel to Dunfermline. I was impressed by the acceleration, the quietness and the comfort of the car but with a six-month waiting list and a price 62% higher than my last new car, the decision was made for me. I do far fewer miles nowadays and my present car is good for 55mpg and another couple of years, why add to the number of vehicles on the road.

The trip gave us an opportunity to visit this former seat of the Scottish monarchs. Dunfermline had been one of the 4 original Royal Burghs, and also the home town of Aileen's parents. They had married in the Abbey so we started with a visit there. The Abbey was open with social distancing and the Historic Environment Scotland staff were very knowledgeable and helpful. An excellent exhibition of Scottish stained glass led us into the impressive Romanesque nave which leads into the rebuilt Parish church where Robert the Bruce was re-interred below the pulpit. The remains of the Palace are part of the town's walls to the south and west and provide a slightly forbidding gravitas to the town. 

Looking across the graveyard the town is dominated by the town hall, a gothic-inspired structure that is now used as a registry for weddings and for meetings of the area committee for Dunfermline by Fife Council. Aileen wondered whether her grandfather had been based here as the County Engineer between the wars. The modern Carnegie library and museum are also adjacent to the abbey and parish church and are a fine testament to this locally born global philanthropist. This part of the town exudes history in its fine stone buildings. What a contrast with the High Street, now decimated of independent shops and fitted out in the sad frontages of downmarket retail franchises, bookies, charity shops and gap sites. North of High Street, the clutter of ugly retail centres surrounded by car parks has dethroned this once fine Royal Burgh.

Dunfermline's location, superb heritage buildings and excellent parks should make it a desirable place to live. It is only 36 minutes over the Forth Rail Bridge to the centre of Edinburgh, one of the best rail journeys in Britain. The retrofitting of once vibrant towns like Dunfermline to accommodate the car and the frenzy of car-based retailing and business centres have ripped the heart out of these places. Perhaps these things will change as the long term effects of life after Covid begin to encourage more locally based lifestyles with far more people working from home and spending less time on needless travelling. It will hopefully provide a stimulus to the places that have endured the fallout from Scotland's Edinburgh centric investments of the past twenty years.  It will require a less centralist Scottish Government and the re-emergence of municipal endeavour and pride to facilitate this transformation.  The electric car may help but active travel initiatives and real community leadership will be just as important.

Town Hall

Abbot House in Maygate

Nave of the Abbey

Some of the stained glass exhibition

The refectory of the palace