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St Margaret's Cave, Dunfermline

West Fife

In Person

Hidden sixty feet beneath the Glen Bridge carpark, unknown to most, and out of sight of everyone is a small cave significant to the history of Dunfermline.

Tradition is that in the 12thC Queen Margaret would make her private devotions at a shrine in a cave secluded in the side of a ravine, and that it was later fitted out for this purpose by her husband, King Malcolm (1057-93). In later centuries, after the Reformation, this cave in the Glen was also used as a covert place of worship and an altar is said to have still occupied it until the 1760s.

This story of the cave was highlighted by 19thC historians and it has become a popular site for pilgrimage and an iconic attraction for visitors to the city.

In 1966 Dunfermline Town Council’s planners decided to create a municipal car park by infilling the ravine with colliery waste and the cave would have been buried and lost, but public outcry against their proposal ensured access to the cave was retained via the specially constructed subterranean stairway.

Entrance to the tunnel is now via the small stone building in the north corner of the carpark.