12 May: Scone Palace

Our visit to Scone Palace (pronounced 'skuun') started with us admiring the estate's Highland Cows. I just love these cute, hairy creatures, so different from the cows at home. Once more I took a dozen photos of the cows and more or less ignored the peacocks; I've taken lots of photos of peacocks before, but these cows....

Scone Palace - the crowning place of Kings of Scots

Once the crowning place of the Kings of Scots, Scone Palace occupies a unique position in the history of Scotland. Directly opposite the Palace, standing on a tiny hill called Moot Hill, is the palace chapel. Moot Hill is the traditional home of the Stone of  Scone or the Stone of Destiny (the crowning stone), until it was captured by Edward I of England in 1296 and taken to Westminster Abbey. However, Moot Hill continued to be the crowning place of the Kings of Scots, even after the stone was removed. The famous Scottish king Robert the Bruce was crowned at Scone in 1306 and the last coronation was of Charles II, when he accepted the Scottish crown in 1651. See my blog post from Edinburgh for more details on the stone. 

A replica of the Stone of Destiny sits upon the hill, marking the site of the original. It's a rather rough stone, surprisingly unglamorous, considering its important role in the rulings of Scotland.

Anyway, at the palace I learned that there was an important difference between English and Scottish kings. English kings were kings 'of England', whereas the Scottish kings were kings 'of the Scots'. The important distinction was that in England you would inherit your title, the Scottish kings were elected by their people and needed their support in order to continue being their king. The same applies to the queens. To my romantic mind this sounds like a way of reducing the distance between the royals and the people they rule, but I might be wrong. The lives they lived certainly did not even remotely resemble the life of ordinary people.

Lunch for us - and the peacocks

Before entering Scone Palace, we explored the playground, the wood with its sculptures, the beautiful garden and the chapel (and in that order!). The weather was nice, though rather chilly (as usual), so at lunchtime we ate a packed lunch at one of the tables outside the castle. As we were eating, we were approached by one of the estate peacocks and he came very close. In the end our boys took pity on him and gave him some of their bread, so he ended up wandering around our table, almost like a dog begging for food.  

A family home

Today, Scone Palace is the home of the Earls of Mansfield, and a visitor attraction to visitors from around the world. The interior is fabulous, see their website for pictures from inside the palace. I've also added a very short video from the castle.

My favourite room was the State Drawing Room, with its royal blue and yellow carpet, magnificent furniture, huge windows and equally huge paintings. As in most family homes, Scone Palace has many pictures of the existing inhabitants, their family, and their ancestors. In this case there were both paintings and photographs on display, giving us a glimpse of the past and present.

The palace contains a large collection of exquisite china, and one of the guides/guards told me that the green colour used for one of the sets of china was made by adding arsenic. The china was beautiful, but drinking coffee from the cups could not have been very good for your health.

Enjoying the pinetum and getting lost in the maze

After we had finished our self-guided tour of the palace, we continued exploring the estate. Like a some of the other large estates we have visited, the palace had a pinetum, which I've learned is an arboretum of pine trees or other conifers for scientific or ornamental purposes. The oldest tree in the collection was the Douglas Fir, planted by David Douglas in 1826. It was huge and the boys enjoyed climbing onto its lowest branch, which was thick as a tree.

We had even more fun when we went to see the Murray Star Maze, a maze designed in the shape of a five pointed star that features in the Murray family crest. The maze is made from 2000 beech trees, half copper and half green, creating a unique tartan effect. At the entrance/exit there is a small viewing platform which lets you appreciate the beauty of the maze as seen from above. When you're in the middle of the maze you don't really see much and it's really easy to get lost, which of course is the purpose of a maze.

What fascinated us adults the most, were the two deer on the edge of the forest at Moot Hill, overlooking the palace. From a distance they looked like real deer, and you had to come quite close to see that they were made entirely from twigs. As far as I could see there was no steel frame, just twigs all the way through. I was impressed by the craftsmanship of the artist who made these extremely beautiful sculptures.

Scone at Scone

By the time we had finished exploring the castle and grounds, we needed some more food. The natural choice was eating in the Old Servants' Hall coffee shop, and finishing off the meal with scones. It just had to be done!