Geograph - photograph every grid square

About as complete a view of the Earl's Palace as can be had from any one spot because of tree cover. The Earl's Palace is one of two ruined palaces to the immediate south of the cathedral - the other being Bishop's Palace across the road.

The palace was built during the first decade of the 1600s, for Patrick Stewart, second Earl of Orkney. But he became heavily in debt before it was completed and was subsequently arrested. He had planned a large complex incorporating the two palaces and, when he was executed in 1615, what had been completed became the home of the Bishop of Orkney.

The building had become derelict by the early 1700s and has been roofless since the roof collapsed in 1745.