Perth () is a city and former royal burgh in central Scotland. There has been a settlement at Perth since prehistoric times. Finds in and around Perth show that it was occupied by the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who arrived in the area more than 8,000 years ago. Nearby Neolithic standing stones and circles followed the introduction of farming from about 4000 BC, and a remarkably well preserved Bronze Age log boat dated to around 1000 BC was found in the mudflats of the River Tay at Carpow to the east of Perth.culture and archaeology : Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust : Archaeology Section - Carpow Log Boat , Scotsman.com: A 3,000-year-old voyage of discovery, Iris logboat, water trough or...? Carpow was also the site of a Roman legionary fortress.
Early history The name Perth derives from a Pictish word meaning "wood", "copse" or "thicket", which links the town to the Picts or Britons, of whom the Picts may have been a subset. Perth's original name, and some archaeological evidence, indicate that there must have been a settlement here from earlier times, probably at a point where a river crossing or crossings coincided with a slightly raised natural mound on the west bank of the River Tay (which at Perth flows north–south), thus giving some protection for settlement from the frequent flooding.Graham-Campbell Perth: The Fair City 1994, p.1. The original inhabitants subsequently merged with the Scots.
In the early 10th century, the city became an important centre of the Kingdom of Alba, which was later known as Scotland. During much of the medieval period the town was known colloquially as Sanct John's Toun (Scots for "Saint John's Town") because St John's Kirk, the church at the centre of the parish, was dedicated to St John the Baptist.Graham-Campbell Perth: The Fair City 1994, p.2. The presence of Scone two miles northeast, a royal centre of Alba from at least the reign of Kenneth I mac Ailpín (843–58), later the site of the major Augustinian abbey of the same name founded by Alexander I (1107–1124), will have enhanced Perth's early importance.
Perth was often the unofficial capital of Scotland, due to the frequent residence of the royal court there. It was at Scone Abbey that the Stone of Destiny was kept, and on it the Kings of Scots were crowned, until the coronation of Alexander III (1249–1286).
12th and 13th centuries
King David I (1124–1153) granted burgh status to the town in the early 12th century, and documents from this time refer to the status of the kirk there. Many of the records taken from this time were the result of the arrival of the Dominicans or Blackfriars. Blackfriars friary was established by Alexander II (1214–1249) by 1240. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Perth was one of the richest trading burghs in the kingdom (along with such towns as Berwick, Aberdeen and Roxburgh), residence of numerous craftsmen, organised into guilds – for example, the hammermen (metalworkers) and glovers. There was probably some decline in prosperity during the numerous wars of the 14th century. The town also carried out an extensive trade with the Continent, and examples of foreign luxury goods have been recovered from excavations within the town, such as Spanish silk, fine pottery from France. Wine will also have been a major import, not least for the use of the Church. The main destinations were France, the Low Countries and the Baltic. Medieval crafts are still remembered in some of the town's old street names, such as Skinnergate, Cutlog Vennel (see Vennels of Perth).Graham-Campbell Perth:The Fair City 1994, p.8.
The royal castle (on or near the site of the present multi-storey car park adjacent to the new council offices) twas destroyed by a flood of the Tay in 1209, one of many that have afflicted Perth over the centuries.Graham-Campbell Perth:The Fair City 1994, p.6. William I (1142–1214) restored Perth's burgh status, while it remained as the nominal capital of Scotland.
14th century: English occupation
King Edward I of England brought his armies to Perth in 1296 where the town, with only a ditch for defence and little fortification, fell quickly.Graham-Campbell Perth: The Fair City 1993, p.14. Stronger fortifications were quickly implemented by the English, and plans to wall the town took shape in 1304. They remained standing until Robert the Bruce's recapture of Perth in 1312. He ordered the defences destroyed.Graham-Campbell Perth: The Fair City 1993, p. 16/7.
In 1332, the pretender Edward Balliol, son of John of Balliol, invaded to claim the throne of Scotland with the backing of Edward III of England. Robert the Bruce had died three years previously, and the regent of his infant son David II fell quickly at the hands of Balliol's army at the battle of Dupplin Moor. Balliol took Perth and the throne in September, and the Scottish Civil War ensued.Graham-Campbell Perth: The Fair City 1993, p.17. Balliol himself was driven out quickly, only to return the next year. His deposition was only made complete in 1336; his supporters were eventually driven from Perth in 1339. As part of a plan to make Perth a permanent English base within Scotland, Edward III forced six monasteries in Perthshire and Fife to pay for the construction of massive stone defensive walls, towers and fortified gates around the town (1336). These followed roughly the lines of present-day Albert Close, Mill Street, South Methven Street, Charterhouse Lane and Canal Street (these streets evolved from a lane around the inside of the walls). Perth Lade, which was led off the River Almond in an artificial channel to power the burgh mills, formed an additional line of defence around the walls.Graham-Campbell Perth: The Fair City 1994, p.4. The walls were pierced by several ports or gates, whose names are still remembered: the Red Brig Port (end of Skinnergate), Turret Brig Port (end of the High Street), Southgait Port (end of South Street) and the Spey Port (end of Speygate). There was probably also a minor gate leading to Curfew Row. These defences were the strongest of any town in Scotland in the Middle Ages. Though still largely complete at the time of the 1745 Jacobite rising, they began to be demolished from the second half of the 18th century, and there are now no visible remains, at least above ground. The last tower, called the Monk's Tower (corner of Tay Street and Canal Street) was demolished about 1810.
Late 14th and 15th century During the Middle Ages, Perth's only parish church was the burgh kirk of St John the Baptist (St John's Kirk). Medieval Perth had many other ecclesiastical buildings, including the houses of the Dominicans (Blackfriars), Observantine Franciscans (Greyfriars) and Perth Charterhouse, Scotland's only Carthusian Priory, or "Charterhouse". A little to the west of the town was the house of the Carmelites or Whitefriars, at Tullilum (corner of Jeanfield Road and Riggs Road). Also at Tullilum (a name preserved by today's Tullylumb Terrace, near Perth Royal Infirmary) was a manor or tower-house of the bishops of Dunkeld. The bishops also owned a house within the burgh itself, at the corner of South Street and Watergate.
The theatre of trial by combat was first brought by Perth in 1396. The Battle of the Clans pitted Clan Chattan against Clan Cameron, each thirty strong, at the town's North Inch. This 'tournament' (actually an attempt to resolve a disruptive Highland feud) took place under the gaze of King Robert III (1390–1406) and his court, who watched the spectacle from the Gilten Arbour, a garden attached to the House of the Blackfriars. Although records vary, Clan Chattan is understood to have won the battle, with the last of their opponents fleeing to safety across the Tay. The assassination of King James I occurred in 1437 when rebel noblemen forced entry into the house of the Dominicans or Blackfriars. James was the last king to command from a throne at Perth; the capital was moved to Edinburgh in 1437.
16th century Perth was a focal point for the religious conflicts of the 16th century. In 1543, three men were hanged for vandalising a statue of Saint Francis. In May 1543, the Blackfriars monastery was attacked.
Mary of Guise served as regent of her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots. She held a Parliament in 1555 and enacted legislation which diminished the powers of craft organisations in favour of merchant guilds. This led to protests, and she visited Perth two or three times to satisfy the craft incorporations, and eventually withdrew the legislation.Michael Lynch, "The Crown and Burghs 1500–1625", The Early Modern Town in Scotland (Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 60–61.Mary Verschuur, "Merchants and Craftsmen", The Early Modern Town in Scotland (Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 44–48.
John Knox began the Scottish Reformation from grass-roots level with a sermon against 'idolatry' in the burgh kirk of St John the Baptist on 11 May 1559. An inflamed mob quickly destroyed the altars in the Kirk, then attacked the Houses of the Greyfriars and Blackfriars, and the Carthusian Priory. Knox later blamed these events on "the rascal multitude". Scone Abbey was sacked shortly afterwards. Mary of Guise was successful in quelling the rioting but Presbyterianism in Perth remained strong. There are no visible remains of the pre-Reformation religious houses of Perth, though their approximate locations are perpetuated in modern street-names.
Mary, Queen of Scots, made her formal Royal Entry to Perth on 17 September 1561.Thomas Thomson, Diurnal of Occurrents (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 69. The town gave her a present of a gold heart full of gold coins.Joseph Robertson, Inventaires (Edinburgh, 1863), p. lxxiv. The pageants had an anti-Catholic theme, and Mary fainted during the events.Retha M. Warnicke, Mary Queen of Scots (Routledge, 2006), p. 72. Anne of Denmark, the wife of James VI and I, made her Entry to Perth at the end of June 1591.Michael Pearce, 'Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark', Medieval English Theatre 43 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), p. 119. In August 1600 James VI rode from Falkland Palace to Gowrie House, the home of the Provost of Perth, the Earl of Gowrie. As a result of a misunderstanding, or a conspiracy (see the Gowrie Conspiracy), the king's retainers killed the Earl and his sons.
Records survive from the incorporations of the Perth craft of carpenters and barbers, and the hammermen (metal workers), and others. Apprentices progressing to become master craftsmen in 16th-century Perth traditionally had to pay for a banquet and hold a football match.Michael Pearce, "A French Furniture Maker and the 'Courtly Style' in Sixteenth-Century Scotland", Regional Furniture, XXXII (2018), pp. 127–128: Taylor Aucoin, "Civic Sponsorship of Festival Football in Late Medieval and Early Modern Scotland", Society of Antiquaries Scotland The records of the Kirk Session note the censure of people enjoying "guising" or mummery in costume and disguise.Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter, Masks and Masking in Medieval and Early Tudor England (Ashgate, 2002), p. 88.
17th and 18th centuries