IN THIS week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane, and following the death of HR Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh, we look at some of the royal visits that have taken place in and around Dunfermline.

Dunfermline has a particularly strong royal heritage stretching back almost 1,000 years to the time of King Malcolm and Queen Margaret. King Malcolm himself decreed that Dunfermline should replace Iona as the burial place of Scottish kings and since that time, six Scottish kings, two queens and three princes have been interred in Dunfermline Abbey.

In the 16th century, Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James V1 of Scotland, who was born in Dunfermline Palace in 1596, went on to become Queen of Bohemia (often referred to as the ‘Winter Queen’). On the demise of the last Stuart monarch in 1714, her grandson succeeded to the British throne as George 1, ushering in the Hanovarian dynasty from which the present royal family is descended.

Our first image from the Press archives shows Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visiting Rosyth Dockyard in 1953 and being introduced to Lord Elgin before leaving on the Royal Yacht Britannia for Norway. In the background is a guard of honour formed by artificer apprentices of HMS Caledonia Rosyth.

The next image is from a visit that took place 1972 to Dunfermline to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the founding of Dunfermline Abbey. A Civic Lunch had been prepared in the King Malcolm Hotel at which the Queen arrived by car to be greeted by crowds of well-wishers waiting outside. Prince Philip arrived by a different form of transport which was described at the time by the Press: "The crowd outside the hotel then transferred to the St Leonard playing fields on the other side of the dual carriageway. There, some 15 minutes after the Queen’s arrival, the Duke of Edinburgh landed in a red-painted helicopter of the Queen's Flight. The Duke of Edinburgh flew the helicopter himself from the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh where he had been presenting Gold Awards under his scheme to help young people from all over Scotland. When he alighted, the Duke was met by Sir John McWilliam and they walked to a car waiting in the slip road which skirts the playing fields. Crowds pressed hard against the Duke as he was about to enter the car and he quipped to 13-year-old Thomas McCaffrey, 36 Nith Street Dunfermline, 'How would you like a shot in the helicopter?'.

Our final photograph shows the royal visitors later that day leaving by the steps outside the magnificent Norman doorway of the Abbey Nave.

More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries when it re-opens to the public.

With thanks to Frank Connelly