Kevin Nosferatu: Canmore's Tower

Today, while walking through Pittencrieff Park, I went down through the grotto like glen and followed the path along Tower Burn, the stream that runs through the park. While a blackbird sang above me, I cut round and walked up past several little caves and passageways that are all closed off by railings and gates. I seem to remember these were all open and accessible when I was a child and have memories of squeezing through the various gaps while running madly around the place with friends and family.

Bridge over Tower Burn

A blackbird nestled in the branches of a tree in the glen in Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project

Blackbird singing up above

After climbing up a steep set of stairs I turned onto the main path and then walked up the Tower Hill. This was once the site of Malcolm Canmore’s Tower, the residence of said Malcolm Canmore.

The name Canmore comes from the Gaelic for Great Chief, though when taught about him at school we were told it actually meant big head because he had a big head. How true that is I don’t know, but my mental image of him has always been of a man with a massive head, much like a Bobblehead toy. Anyway, big head or not, he was the man who killed Macbeth, and Macbeth’s son Lulach, and thus in 1058 became King Malcolm III of Scotland. In 1070 he married Margaret of Wessex, who went on to become our local saint, St Margaret of Scotland. She was a pious Christian who established a ferry across the Firth of Forth from what is now South Queensferry to North Queensferry. The ferry service was for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife. Malcolm died in 1093 at the Battle of Alnwick.

There is not much is left of Malcolm Canmore’s Tower today, just the foundation stones really.

A dirt path leads up to a low wall around what remains of the foundations of Malcolm Canmore's Tower, Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project

Path up Tower Hill to remains of the tower

Remains of Malcolm Canmore’s Tower

View over remains of tower wall towards Dunfermline Abbey

The only description recorded regarding the tower was made by John of Fordun, and this really only describes the area it sat in - ‘…by nature strongly fortified in itself, being surrounded by a very dense forest, and fortified in front with very precipitous rocks; and in the midst of it there was a beautiful plain, also fortified by rocks and rivulets, so that the expression “Not easy of access to man, and hardly to be approached by wild beasts,” might be thought applicable to it.’ However, an image of the tower was used in the burgh seal for Dunfermline and an old wax impression of this survives. In 1790 John Baine, a Civil Engineer from Edinburgh, examined the ruins of the tower and made a sketch of how it may have looked, based on the wax seal.

Sketch of Malcolm Canmore’s Tower by John Baine from The Annals of Dunfermline and Vicinity from the Earliest Authentic Period to the Present Time AD 1069-1878

Sketch by John Baine of how Malcolm Canmore’s Tower may have looked.

The wax seal would seem to show a two storey building with an attic. According to Ebenezer Henderson, the author of ‘The Annals of Dunfermline and Vicinity’, the tower would appear to have been a ‘stately, massive building’ that was ‘about fifty-two feet from east to west and forty-eight feet from north to south…’ It would have consisted of at least twenty ‘small eleventh century apartments’ and in the attic, there would have been a host of little rooms for servants and attendants.

Now there is not much to show for what must have been one of the most dominant buildings in the landscape at that time. But then what will be remain of our homes a thousand years from now? Probably nothing more than a few foundation stones at the most. And with that happy thought I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk under some ivy growing along the tower wall.