Crossroads and Characters

34. THE SCOTTISH CAPITAL.

When Kenneth MacAlpine became the first king of a unified Scotland in 843 A.D., he made his residence and capital at the already established community of Forteviot, near where the River or Water of May meets the River Earn. A royal palace and a monastery were located there. In 1791 traveller Thomas Newte wrote: 'Vestiges of the Monastery were to be seen at a final eminence called the Haly or Holy Hill within the memory of the present generation: but palace, monastery and the Haly Hill itself are now completely swept away by the capricious follies of the Water of May, which continually changes its gravelly bed and sports with the toils of laborious man.' A stone from the church was found last century in a gravel bed, and is now in an Edinburgh museum. This is how Forteviot village looked about 1900.