Elgin Cathedral Elgin, Scotland
Scheduled Monument Data
Elgin Cathedral has been designated a scheduled monument in Scotland with the following information. Please note that not all available data may be shown here, minor errors and/or formatting may have occurred during transcription, and some information may have become outdated since scheduling.
- Historic Scotland ID
- SM0
- Name
- Elgin Cathedral
- Parish
- Elgin
- County
- Moray
- Easting
- 322193
- Northing
- 863056
- Categories
- Ecclesiastical: cathedral
- Date Listed
- 6 February 1995
Listed Building Description
Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.
The monument consists of the surviving portions of Elgin Cathedral, its ancillary buildings, graveyard, boundary wall and gates
The remains consist of a nave with double aisles and N and S porches; twin western towers having a superb portal and window between them; transepts above which rose a great central tower (which collapsed in 1711); a choir with aisles and presbytery; and a detatched octagonal chapter-house, rebuilt in the 15th century.
The cathedral was founded in 1224 and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Much of the remaining work is from that century; but in 1390 the cathedral was burnt by Alexander, earl of Buchan, also known as the "Wolf of Badenoch", and the ruins show traces of extensive early 15th-century rebuilding.
In the surviving ruins and in the detached fragments assembled on the site there is a wealth of moulded work, heraldic decoration, and figure sculpture; preserved in the nave is a standing cross-slab with Pictish symbols, which formerly stood in St Giles's kirkyard in Elgin.
The area to be scheduled includes the remains of the cathedral and chapter-house, the cathedral lodge, and the graveyard surrounding the cathedral up to and including the boundary wall and gates: an area measuring some 130m E-W by 90m N-S, as shown in red on the accompanying map.
