Elgin Cathedral

The people of Elgin are fleeing to the countryside with their families as quickly as they can; there is a wolf in town. Sentries armed with burning torches approach the town with orders to destroy. This wolf isn’t going to pick off a couple of stray sheep from the surrounding farms, but ransack and burn anything that comes in its way. The target: Elgin Cathedral, the tyrant: The Wolf of Badenoch - the worst kind of swine in Scottish history. This nickname assigned to Alexander Stewart, the youngest son of Robert II, was well deserved as this particular raid was a terrible act of revenge. After leaving and divorcing the Wolf, his wife the Countess of Ross pleaded with the Bishop of Moray for her adulterous husband to be excommunicated for his copious acts of infidelity. The Bishop accepted and Alexander Stewart was cut off from the church, it was this excommunication that enraged and provoked The Wolf of Badenoch to set alight the Cannon’s house, the college, the hospital and of course the Cathedral.

Elgin Cathedral was known as the Lantern of the North as it was the ecclesiastical centre of the Bishopric of Moray. Sometimes the Lantern has burned too bright as the reason for its current state of ruin isn’t solely because of the Wolf of Badenoch’s fury in 1390, but because of the many other fires the Cathedral has endured since its construction.

When it was built in the 1200’s it was a much smaller building than it is now. It was rebuilt following a fire as a much larger structure which became the largest in Scotland after St Andrews Cathedral. After the destruction caused by Alexander Stewart the Cathedral was rebuilt and developed over the next two centuries. It had to be further repaired after the collapse of the main tower in 1506 when the chapter house was also improved and still remains intact to this day.

At the time of the Reformation Elgin Cathedral was deserted when its congregation was moved to St Giles Church in the centre of Elgin. Following its desertion the Cathedral fell into a state of disrepair with further collapses of the central tower and more fires. The building was robbed and shred of any valuable materials including the lead from the roof and the church bells. The Chapter house, still well preserved, was found to be useful to local traders who held meetings there.

Any visitors to the site of the old Cathedral today will have to use their imagination to appreciate what this building would have looked like before an adulterous wolf, a religious revolution, and a monk with a box of matches destroyed it, but the Cathedral doesn’t fail to deliver as a suitable tourist destination. From the site you can explore the shell of the old Cathedral by walking around the interior and surrounding grounds. The Chapter house is still intact and provides shelter from the omnipresent rain or you can appreciate a bird’s eye view by climbing the North Tower. The old Cathedral has laid witness to much dramatic history and unfortunately has suffered from it, but The Lantern of The North still flickers on in the heart of Moray.