Dunkeld Cathedral emerged as a centre of Christianity during the 7th Century, when Columba came over from Iona, and much work was carried out by his successors. In the 9th Century, Kenneth MacAlpin, the first King of Scots, made Dunkeld head of the Celtic Church and capital of the newly-formed nation created by the union of the Scots and the Picts. The Church grew in power and wealth and the Cathedral, started in 1325, was extremely important in ecclesiastical terns until the Reformation in the 16th Century, when it was destroyed. The Choir of the Cathedral was re- roofed in 1600 to serve as the parish church, and there was relative peace until 1689, when there was a short, but extremely violent Battle between the Jacobites and the Cameronians (a newly-raised regiment supporting William of Orange) and most of Dunkeld was burned to the ground.
Return to Dunkeld from Dunkeld Cathedral