Pittencrieff Park

📌 Dunfermline, Fife
★★★

We love squirrelling away a few hours in Pittencrieff Park. Dunfermline‘s greatest natural asset was gifted to the town by Andrew Carnegie (who else?) in 1903, providing what was then an industrial settlement with much-needed green space. The east side of the park backs onto the town’s Heritage Quarter, with the unexpectedly deep glen of the Tower Burn restricting access from this side to a couple of specific points. The rest of the place is mostly open grassland broken up by several excellent playgrounds, a warm glasshouse, areas of formal gardens, unusually bold grey squirrels and even a peacock sanctuary (on the west side). The bright orange building in the middle is Pittencrieff House. Dating to 1610, the house is the centrepiece of this former estate; a museum inside has been closed on our last few visits (following the opening of a new museum in the Carnegie Library & Galleries in the town centre) but there are plans to bring it back into use.