St Margaret's Cave, Dunfermline
West Fife
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.
Margaret was a Saxon princess, granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside of England, born around 1047 in Hungary where her exiled father had settled. She became Queen of Scotland when she married Malcolm Canmore in Dunfermline around 1070. Three of her eight children became Kings of Scotland: Edgar, Alexander and David.
Tradition is that 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.
In 1093, after a deeply religious and charitable life, Margaret died on 16th November, and her saint’s day is still celebrated on this date. She was made a saint by Pope Innocent IV in honour of her life and the miracles associated with her after her death.
St Margaret’s Cave is a special place which has an atmosphere all its own. When you descend 87 steps into the earth, with the haunting sound of monks singing, you can feel the weight of centuries of Dunfermline’s history.
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. Walk down 87 steps through a tunnel interspersed with interpretation boards which tell the story of St Margaret and the Cave. At the bottom of the tunnel is the small cave which St Margaret used as a place of prayer and quiet contemplation.
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