Tour
Scone Palace in beautiful Perthshire
Located
1½ miles (2 km) N of Perth and 2 miles (3 km) W of New Scone,
Scone Palace is the family home of the Earls of Mansfield.
Despite its historic setting, the Palace we see today was
only built in 1802 by English architect William Atkinson,
who went on to create Abbotsford for Sir Walter Scott.
Originally the site of a 6th C. Celtic church, replaced
in the 12th C. by an Augustinian Abbey and a Bishop's
Palace which provided lodgings for the Kings of Scotland.
Both Palace and Abbey were destroyed in 1559 by a Perth
mob, incited by a sermon by John Knox (1505-72), and the
lands passed to the Earl of Gowrie, who built a new house.
However, after the Gowrie Conspiracy (1600), an attempt
to kidnap James VI (1566-1625), the estates were forfeit
and given to Sir David Murray (1604), who was also created
Lord Scone, in return for his loyalty to James.
Murray built a new Palace in 1618 and it was here that Charles
II (1630-85) stayed before being the last King crowned on
Moot Hill in the palace grounds (1651), where Kings had
been crowned since the time of Kenneth MacAlpin (d.858).
Other visitors included the Old Pretender (1715) and his
son Bonnie Prince Charlie (1745). Murray's descendants
became the Viscounts Stormont (1602) and then Earls of Mansfield
(1776). The 1st Earl spent his time in London and the 2nd
Earl found the old palace too damp. Thus it was David Murray,
becoming the 3rd Earl at only 19, who commissioned the rebuilding
of the palace as the splendid castellated gothic edifice
in red sandstone which we see today. It houses fine collections
of furniture, paintings, ivory and porcelain, together with
historically-important royal heirlooms belonging to James
VI and his mother Mary.
The fine grounds include a fir tree planted in 1825 from
seeds sent back by botanist David Douglas (1799-1834), who
had been a gardener at the palace and ruins of the historic
village of Scone, dismantled to permit a larger estate around
the new palace in 1805
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