Town in Stirling, Scotland
Dunblane
A cathedral town with a gold postbox, a royal mistress buried in its choir, and a tennis champion who grew up on its streets.
Key information
- County
- Stirling
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 8,800 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Dunblane Cathedral, Andy Murray, the Leighton Library
- Famous people
- Andy Murray, Judy Murray, Jamie Murray, Robert Leighton
About Dunblane
The postbox that turned gold
On the High Street in Dunblane there is a postbox painted gold. It marks Andy Murray's victory in the 2012 London Olympics, when he won the men's singles final on Wimbledon's Centre Court. Royal Mail gave the same treatment to the home towns of other British gold medallists. Murray grew up here, learning the game at the local tennis courts under his mother Judy, who went on to become one of Scotland's best-known coaches. His brother Jamie became a doubles champion. Then came 2013. Murray won Wimbledon and became the first British man to take the title since Fred Perry in 1936. That was a 77-year wait, and it was watched from Dunblane with the volume turned up.
A saint, a fort and a cathedral that outlasted the bishops
The town's name comes from St Blane, a 6th-century holy man linked with the island of Bute. Dùn Blàin means roughly 'Blane's fort', and a church has stood on the site ever since. The cathedral you see today was largely rebuilt in the 13th century under Bishop Clement. It is a long, calm building of pale stone, set beside the Allan Water. Dunblane is no longer the seat of a bishop, so the cathedral is a Church of Scotland parish church, but everyone still calls it the cathedral. The roof had fallen into decay by the 1800s. A thorough restoration in the early 1890s by the architect Rowand Anderson gave it the shape it has now.
The royal mistress in the choir
One of the cathedral's best stories is the saga of the Drummond sisters. Margaret Drummond was the mistress of James IV and, according to tradition, was poisoned in 1501 along with her sisters, possibly to stop the king marrying her instead of a foreign princess. The three women were buried in the cathedral, where their memorial slabs can still be seen. Whether the poisoning really happened has never been settled, but the story has never left the building.
A bishop's books
Robert Leighton, Bishop of Dunblane in the 17th century, left his collection of books to the diocese. The Leighton Library, built in 1687 beside the cathedral, is one of Scotland's oldest libraries. Its shelves hold thousands of volumes, many of them from Leighton's own collection. Leighton had a reputation as a gentle churchman in an age of fierce religious quarrels, and his library is one of the quietest things in a quiet town.
March 1996 and what followed
On 13 March 1996, a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School and killed sixteen children and their teacher, Gwen Mayor. It was one of the darkest days in modern Scottish history. The response from the town and the country was immense. The Snowdrop campaign gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures, and the Firearms (Amendment) Acts of 1997 banned most handguns in Britain. Andy Murray was a pupil at the school at the time. A memorial garden and the cathedral's quiet presence mean the town remembers every year, without fuss.
A hydro on the hill and a handy commute
Dunblane grew in the Victorian era, helped by the railway. The Dunblane Hydro, which opened in 1878 as a hydropathic hotel offering spa treatments, still stands on the hill above the town as the Hilton Dunblane Hydro. Today the town is a popular base for people working in Stirling, Glasgow and Edinburgh, with leafy streets, independent shops and a handsome cathedral square. Open country at Sheriffmuir, the site of a famous battle in the 1715 Jacobite rising, is a short walk away.