Abbot’s Grange

Abbot's Grange

Description:  The earlier versions of the OS map show a ditched enclosure with a ‘drawbridge’ in the area of what is now Zetland Park. The interior is said to have been higher than the surrounding area until the level of the park was raised using rubbish. It is presumably the site of the medieval grange of Holyrood Abbey.

History:  The main buildings would have been of stone. Given the richness of the estate it is possible that the principal building took the form of a small tower house.

A sundial which used to stand in this vicinity was stored in Falkirk Museum until 1998, when it was erected in the north end of Lumley Street, Grangemouth, in a metal cage. The earliest reference to the Grange here comes from 1314 when the Abbot of Holyrood pleaded for a reduction in the land-duties from their holding on the Carse due to its reduced state due to the wars between Scotland and England (Liber Sancto Crucis, App I.12 Bannatyne Club, 1840). In 1363, Holyrood is said to have “possessed the lordship lands of the said lands of the Carss with manor, grange and pertinents and with a meadow which is called Dubet” (Regesta Regum Scottorum, vi, 298).

The Grange is next encountered in 1543 when Thomas Levingstoun appears as a kindly tenant (RMS, iii, no. 2935). For further details, see Reid, J. (1997), 63-5.

Geoff Bailey (2016)