The New Murrey and Blue blog

The Scone Palace of today is described as follows: “….Set in spreading parkland on the River Tay about two miles north of the centre of Perth, the present building is almost entirely the creation of the architect William Atkinson working for the Earl of Mansfield between 1803 and 1812….According to the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, a compilation of earlier texts in Latin made in about 1300, it was here, on the hill beside the ‘royal civitas of Scone’, in the sixth year of his reign — in 904 or 905 — that Constantin II met Bishop Cellach and ‘pledged to keep the laws and disciplines of the Faith and the rights of the Church and the Gospels….From that day the hill earned its name, that is the Hill of Belief’ or colle credulitatis….”

The above extract takes the site back before the Viking invasions of Britain. If you go to this link The tale of Scone Palace, and the mystery of the Stone of Scone – Country Life you can read all about Scone’s long history. There is a lot of information to be absorbed.

Between 1120-1122 Alexander I established an Augustian priory at Scone, to “….bolster its status as a seat of royal power and the place of inauguration of Scottish kings….” Ah yes, and that seat was, literally, the Stone of Scone/Destiny upon which many an English (and then British) monarch sat to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. It has now been returned to Scotland.

England and Scotland were foes when the stone was taken by Edward I on 8 August 1296. Edward’s men caused considerable damage to the abbey roofs and then burned the buildings. The stone was then carried off to Westminster Abbey. There it stayed until 30 November 1996, St Andrew’s Day, 1996, when it was taken home.

You can read more about the stone here: What is the Stone of Scone? (countrylife.co.uk)