15/06/2026
🥁The answer to Clue #3 - The Former Post Office, Queen Anne Street.📮
Well done to those who guessed it right!🥳🥇
The old Post Office building stands right in the heart of Dunfermline. It is a Category B listed building. Many people remember it with warmth and affection as the place where Christmas cards were posted, parcels were sent and collected, and everyday life quietly unfolded. Although the building has stood empty since the postal service moved out in 2017, it remains one of the city's most important historic landmarks. What many people may not realise is that its story began long before the first letter was ever sorted there.
The Post Office was designed by the Scottish architect Walter Wood Robertson in 1889-1890 for HM Office of Works. Robertson was also responsible for the main Post Offices in Perth, Greenock, and Dundee. Built from traditional sandstone, the building provided accommodation over the ground and first floors and quickly became a busy centre of communication for the growing town.
As postal services expanded, Robertson designed an extension in 1902. The work cost around £4,000 and was carried out by Wright & Davie, Edinburgh. A single-storey brick extension was built to the rear in an approximate horseshoe shape around a central courtyard. According to contemporary newspaper reports, this courtyard greatly improved the loading and discharging of mail, with engineers' rooms and stores occupying the surrounding buildings. The public office was enlarged, the sorting office expanded, and new facilities, including a telephone room, reflected the changing technology of the early twentieth century.
However, the most fascinating part of the building's history is what had to disappear in order for it to exist.
The Post Office replaced Dunfermline's old High School, which was demolished to make way for the new development. The school itself was a substantial building, distinguished by an ornamental circular structure that was intended to serve as an observatory. Its history stretched back much further than the Victorian period, making it one of the town's earliest educational institutions.
The Grammar School, which stood until 1817 in the south-east corner of the High School playground, had been established in 1625 and enjoyed the patronage of Queen Anne, who, in 1610, granted the Town Council the substantial sum of £2,000 in support of the school. It was a small building, very simple, measuring about 40 feet in length, 25 feet in depth, and 16 feet in height. It served generations of young people before being abandoned in 1817. (see the picture).
Three triangular inscribed stones that once formed part of the Grammar School were carefully preserved and incorporated into the new Post Office building. Today, they can still be found in the wall facing Pilmuir Street, providing a remarkable physical link between seventeenth-century, Victorian and modern Dunfermline.
First stone bears the burgh arms together with the inscription:
FAVE MIHI MI DEUS,1625
"Favour me, O my God."
The second stone, preserved from the east gable of the demolished building, carries the words:
SEP: DOCE ET CASTIGA VT VIVAT PVER, 1625
"Often teach and chastise, that the boy may live."
The third, formerly located at the western end of the school building, reads:
X DISCE ET PATE RE SIC TE BEAB ET DEUS TUUS, 1625
"Learn and suffer. Thus thy God shall bless thee."
The first inscription is a general supplication for Divine aid; the second advises the teacher to provide proper instruction and due chastisement; the third advises the scholars to learn with diligence and submit to punishment, so that they shall receive the blessing of God.
These inscriptions reveal the values that shaped education four hundred years ago. They speak of learning, discipline, perseverance, and faith, and they have survived every change the site has experienced. Although educational values and methods have changed, this part of history still remains.
The cultural and historical significance of the Old Post Office is therefore far greater than its Victorian architecture alone. The building represents Dunfermline's development as a modern town connected by communication and commerce, while at the same time preserving memories of its much earlier educational heritage and its royal patronage.
Next time you pass the old Post Office building, take a moment to look for the three carved stones built into its wall. They are easy to miss, but they are among the oldest surviving pieces of Dunfermline's history, quietly telling a story that began long before the Victorian Post Office was ever built.
Note: the former Post Office building is still on the market; the initial plans were set for it to become a restaurant, but it was never accomplished.
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