Epidemics in James I’s Scotland. Professor Richard Oram. There is a certain grim sense of history repeating itself to think that exactly six hundred years ago, Scotland was in the grip of an epidemic of a new, previously unknown and terrifying disease. For the previous seventy years, the kingdom had suffered from recurring waves of…
Details
What is a Charterhouse? Professor Richard Oram. Perth Charterhouse was a key element in James I’s rebuilding of the place of the king as the principal patron and protector of the Church in Scotland. Scholars have long recognised the significance of his foundation of a Carthusian monastery and understood his deep personal connection with the…
Details
Tantallon Castle. Professor Richard Oram. In the middle of the fourteenth century, William, 1st earl of Douglas, started to build a great new castle for himself on a windswept coastal headland on the north-east knuckle of East Lothian. His castle, Tantallon, was intended from the outset to be a potent symbol of the power…
Details
Dunfermline Palace. Professor Richard Oram. To the south-west of the abbey at Dunfermline and connected to its refectory block by the inner gate tower rises a long, tall building that stands on the brink of the gorge of the Pittencrieff Burn. Few visitors pay it much attention, for what remains is principally its southern wall…
Details
Perth’s Lost Castle. Professor Richard Oram. People in Perth today often bemoan the fact that, unlike Edinburgh or Stirling, it has no medieval royal castle that might act as a draw for tourists. Medieval urban castles are actually a rarity in Scotland, with most of the original twelfth-century ones having been destroyed during the Wars…
Details
St. Mary’s Chapel. Professor Richard Oram. A late seventeenth-century engraving of Perth from Bridgend shows the outline of an assuming building standing gable-end on to the River Tay at the east end of the High Street, at the point where the medieval bridge across the river had stood until the early 1600s. The engraving is…
Details