The Precinct Wall, second in extent only to that of St. Andrews, encloses ten acres. The North Gate was originally protected by a large gatehouse, the ruins of which can still be seen. It has a prison cell at ground level, probably serving the needs of the Court of Regality of which Pluscarden held rights in 1535, and the courtroom itself may have ben on one of the upper floors In the north precinct wall there still survive the recesses in which the monks long-ago kept their wicker beehives from which came wax for candles. From the gateway, an avenue led down to the Priory buildings. Water was also carried in a great stone-built drain to pass south of the Priory buildings and below the Prior's Lodging. This important building, detached from the rest, must at one time have had considerable grandeur and its ruins today give a fair indication of its size.

The Prior of Pluscarden was no mean figure in the councils of the nation and in fact regularly occupied a place in Scottish parliaments. His Lodging at Pluscarden must have been comparable in scale with the better preserved example at Crossraguel Abbey in Ayrshire, and, like the latter, appears to have been a tower-house. Beyond this Lodging the ruin of a futher detached building spanning the great drain was the monks' rere-dorter, or lavatory block. In the Cemetery is a fine Calvary in native oak, the work of Marvin Elliott, a gift in memory of Richard Simpkin.

All around the Abbey buildings stand magnificent trees, some of them perhaps at only two or three generations removed from the plantings of the first monks of Pluscarden, and, among them, the bird-song that accompanies the visitor as he strolls in the grounds is something that he will not soon forget.