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Publication Account

Date 1997

Event ID 1019166

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1019166

The extent of the palace is still not clear but there are references to ruins extending to the Library. On the north side, it had been levelled by the late nineteenth century. In 1903, while digging foundations for the Cathedral Hall, workmen uncovered a 90 ft (27.4 m) long vault, running parallel with the wall separating the kirkyard from the Cathedral Hall garden. The roof had been broken in many places and the vault itself had been backfilled with rubble. The arched roof of a second vault has also been uncovered on the kirkyard side of the garden wall.

Recent trial excavations, in advance of a proposed extension to the Cathedral Hall, uncovered a further length of partially robbed-out vault and the remains of a cobbled courtyard surface. Probably the western end of the same vault found in the Cathedral Hall, it was similarly backfilled with rubble. The roof of the vault lay c 0.8 m below the present ground surface. Although the ground plan and full extent of the palace remains unclear, it has been suggested that the main palace block faced the cathedral, with the gable walls facing the Allan Water. The upstanding vaults may then form part of a southern annexe, or west range, connected to the main block, albeit at an unusual angle, by a circular stair tower. The archaeological implications for the palace are therefore considerable. It has been shown to extend under Bishop's Close into the garden of, and under, the Cathedral Hall. It may equally extend in all directions from the visible ruins, into the grounds of the manse and the gardens of the cottages on the west of the roadway, as well as into the kirkyard.

Information from ‘Historic Dunblane: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1997).

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