Dunblane Cathedral

For nearly three centuries Dunblane Cathedral was half a building in use and half a ruin. After the abolition of prelacy following the Glorious Revolution of 1689, the choir became the parish church and the nave fell out of use altogether — and its roof had in fact already fallen in by about 1600. Services continued at one end of the church while the other stood open to the weather.

That was not put right until the late nineteenth century. Under the direction of the Rev Alexander Ritchie, the architect Robert Rowand Anderson restored the building and re-roofed the nave between 1889 and 1893, with the works finally completed by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1912.

What was being restored had been built over a very long period. The oldest surviving part is the lower four storeys of the tower, dating from around 1100, and it was originally free-standing — a separate structure that the church was later built against. Its upper two storeys were added around 1500. Between those two dates came the thirteenth-century Gothic work that forms most of the rest of the building, including the choir, with its long vaulted chamber on the north side serving as chapter house and sacristy.

The church is dedicated to St Blane, a saint of the sixth century, and the dedication named the town: Dunblane means the hill of St Blane. There was also an altar to St Laurence.

The best reason to go inside is the woodwork. The choir holds many of the fifteenth-century stalls commissioned by Bishop Ochiltree, with carved misericords — the hinged ledges under the seats that let standing clergy rest — including one with an unusual depiction of a bat. At the west end of the nave are further, more elaborate canopied stalls commissioned by Bishop Chisholm. Taken together, Dunblane has the largest surviving collection of medieval Scottish ecclesiastical woodwork after King’s College Chapel in Aberdeen, and some detached fragments are displayed in the town’s museum.

The choir also holds the mural tomb of the cathedral’s founder, Bishop Clement, who died in 1258, and among the other monuments are Malise II, Earl of Strathearn, and the graves of Margaret Drummond of Stobhall — a mistress of James IV — with her two sisters, all three of whom are said to have been poisoned.

In the nave stands a much more recent monument. A standing stone by the sculptor Richard Kindersley commemorates the events of 13 March 1996, carrying quotations from E. V. Rieu, Richard Henry Stoddard, Bayard Taylor and W. H. Auden.

Technically the building is no longer a cathedral at all, since the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian and has no bishops. It was the seat of the bishops of Dunblane, sometimes styled of Strathearn, until 1689, and remains of the vaults of the episcopal palace survive to the south. Unusually, the building is owned by the Crown and looked after by Historic Scotland rather than by church governance, and there is no entrance charge.