Day 38 - Dunfermline

13 May 2023

Dunfermline has been a real treat to explore today. We were able to park the car for free all day in the centre of the city at Pittencrieff Park, which was given to the people of Dunfermline by Andrew Carnegie in 1902. The park is 76 acres of lawn, gardens, woodland (lots of stunning colours with all of the deciduous trees), and squirrels. There are signs warning of the wild free-roaming peacocks, but we didn’t see any. After a very scrummy breakfast at the beautifully renovated Guildhall, we spent most of the rest of the morning exploring the historic Dunfermline Abbey and its grounds. Dunfermline was the ancient capital of Scotland, and there many Scottish kings and queens buried here, including Robert the Bruce, St Margaret of Scotland, and David I of Scotland. We searched the outside burial ground for any evidence of our Gilfillan or Law families but had no luck. Next door was The Carnegie Library which holds records for the area, but we didn’t find out anything new regarding our ancestors.

Clockwise from top left: Robert the Bruce's grave in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline main street still with coronation bunting, blossoms in the park, Dunfermline Abbey, the pretty garden where we had lunch.

Lunch was in the brilliant sunshine sitting outside in the garden at the café of the 15^th century Abbot House. Spectacular! We then drove about 15 minutes down the road to Torryburn, on the banks of the Firth of Forth. Torryburn was where our Gilfillan family were in the late 1700s, and we were able to find the parish church, which looked like it was being renovated into a private dwelling, and the accompanying churchyard. Torryburn itself was made up of only a few streets but there were some obviously very old houses that were still surviving. We walked along the very tidal Firth of Forth and up through bushland to Rosyth/Crombie Churchyard, as recommended by some locals. The church was a ruin but the setting was stunning, being surrounded by bush and rolling fields, and of course it was interesting to explore the gravestones. These were probably people who our Gilfillans would have known.

Top left is Torryburn Parish Church and graveyard, top right is the 'beach' at Torryburn, bottom left is the old church ruin at Rosyth/Crombie, bottom right shows some of the trees in Pittencrieff Park. Middle is an inquisitive squirrel in the park.

It doesn’t get dark here until about 9:30pm at the moment, so we still had plenty of daylight left to head back to Pittencrieff Park to do some more exploring. We had a drink in the oldest pub in Dunfermline, dating back to the 1600s, where the locals were very vocal in their opinions of the ref during a football game. There was much cheering and jumping around when the right team scored.

It has been a very interesting day, especially because neither Mum nor I really knew what to expect from Dunfermline. We are both very grateful that we have had the chance to spend time exploring here.