This section is from the book "Chambers's Concise Gazetteer Of The World", by David Patrick. Also available from Amazon: Chambers's Concise Gazetteer Of The World.
Dunfermline, a 'city' of Fife, 16 miles NW. of Edinburgh, and 20 E. by S. of Stirling. It stands on a long swelling ridge, 3 miles from and 300 feet above the Forth, and, backed by the Cleish Hills (1240 feet), presents a striking aspect from the south. It is a place of hoar antiquity, from 1057 till 1650 a frequent residence of Scotland's kings, and for more than two centuries their place of sepulture. Malcolm Canmore here founded in 1072 a priory, which David I. remodelled in 1124 as a Benedictine abbey. The nave alone of its church, Romanesque to Third Pointed in style, was spared at the Reformation, and now forms a stately vestibule to the New Abbey Church (1818-21), in building which Robert Bruce's grave was discovered. There are ruins of the ' frater-house' or refectory, of the ' pended tower,' and of the royal palace (c. 1540); but of Malcolm's Tower only a shapeless fragment is left, and the 'Queen's House' (1600) was wholly demolished in 1797. Nor otherwise is there anything older than the great fire of 1624; indeed, the churches and the public buildings are almost all of quite recent erection. There are the Gothic corporation buildings (1876-79); the county building (1807-50); St Margaret's Hall (1878), with a fine organ; the Carnegie Public Library (1881); the Carnegie Baths (1877); and the handsome new high school (1886). The staple industry is damask linen-weaving, which, dating from 1716, now in some years turns out goods to the value of a million sterling. Bleaching, iron-founding, etc. are also carried on. Dunfermline was made a royal burgh in 1588, and unites with the other four Stirling burghs to return one member to parliament. In 1902-3 Mr Carnegie made over £500,000 to be held in trust for behoof of the town. Pop. (1801) 5484; (1881) 17,085; (1901) 25,250. For Dunfermline's worthies, St Margaret, Robert Henrysoun, Charles I., Ralph Erskine, Sir Noel Paton, and Mr Andrew Carnegie, and for its many memories, of kings, Scottish and English, of Cromwellian victory and Jacobite skirmish, reference may be made to works by Chalmers (1844-59), Henderson (1879), and Beveridge (1888).
 
Continue to: