Elgin Pans Port and Precinct Wall Elgin, Moray, Scotland, UK

Scheduled Monument Statement of Significance

© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.

The monument is of national importance as representing part of the sixteenth-century precinct wall surrounding one of Scotland's finest medieval cathedrals. It sheds light on Elgin's medieval urban topography and on medieval fortification, besides illustrating the approach to conservation adopted by nineteenth-century restorers.

Scheduled Monument Description

© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.

The monument consists of two elements: a heavily-restored medieval gateway and a stretch of precinct wall.

Elgin Cathedral and its associated buildings were formerly enclosed by a stone wall, 3.6m high and 1.8m wide, extending approximately 1km from the River Lossie, SW to Collie Street, and then N across the back of the Deanery to the Lossie again. It was punctuated by four gates leading into the precinct from a paved street following the external perimeter of the wall. Only one of these, Pans Port, or the Water Gate, still survives to the south-east of the cathedral.

Heavily restored in 1857, it now consists of a pointed-arched opening flanked by imitation dumb-bell shaped shot-holes and surmounted by a stepped coping. The arch contains a portcullis slot, some 0.15m thick. A short stretch of wall runs some 25m SW of the gate. Some 80m SW of this, there survives another fragment of walling on the south side of Pansport Place. This is an angled fragment, 8.5m long, 2m thick and 2.7m in maximum height. It too has been heavily restored.

The area to be scheduled includes Pans Port and its associated fragment of wall, contained within an area of ground measuring some 8m WNW-ESE by 36.5m NNE-SSW, and the isolated fragment of wall to the SW of this, contained within an area of ground measuring some 13m on the N, 9m on the E, 18.3m on the S, and 10.6 on the W, as shown in red on the accompanying map.

Scheduled Monument References

© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.

RCAHMS records the monument as NJ 26 SW 1.7.

Reference:

Cant, R. G. and Lindsay, I. G. (1954) Old Elgin: an description of old buildings illustrated with photographs and a map, Elgin, 13, 8-9.

Mackintosh, H. B. (1924) Pilgrimages in Moray: a guide to the county, Elgin, 26.

Shaw, L. (1882) The history of the province of Moray: comprising the counties of Elgin and Nairn, the greater part of the County of Inverness, and a portion of the County of Banff ' all called the Province of Moray before there was a division into counties, 3v, London: Glasgow, Vol. 2, 14.

Simpson, A. T. and Stevenson, S. (1982) Historic Elgin: The Archaeological Implications of Development (Scottish Burgh Survey, Glasgow), 29-30.

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/elgin-cathedral