Kelso Abbey is a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
abbey built in the 12th century by a community of
TironensianThe Tironensian Order or the Order of Tiron was a Roman Catholic monastic order named after the location of the mother abbey in the woods of Tiron in Perche, some 35 miles west of Chartres in France)...
monks (originally from Tiron, near
ChartresChartres is a town and commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in north-central France It is located southwest of Paris in central France.-Geography:...
, in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
) who had moved from the nearby Selkirk Abbey. The monks constructed the Abbey on land granted to them by
King David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots . The youngest son of Malcolm III and Margaret, David spent most of his childhood in Scotland, but was exiled to England temporarily in 1093...
. The construction commenced in 1128, and when completed fifteen years later, in 1143, it was dedicated to
The Blessed VirginThe Blessed Virgin Mary, sometimes shortened to the Blessed Virgin or the Virgin Mary, is a traditional title used by most Christians and most specifically used by liturgical Christians such as Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, and some others to...
and
Saint JohnJohn the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles....
.
Kelso Abbey soon grew to be one of the wealthiest and grandest in
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, with much of its income coming from its vast estates in the
Border countryThe border country is the area either side of the Anglo-Scottish border including parts of the modern council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders, and parts of the English counties of Cumbria, County Durham and Northumberland...
.
Kelso Abbey is a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
abbey built in the 12th century by a community of
TironensianThe Tironensian Order or the Order of Tiron was a Roman Catholic monastic order named after the location of the mother abbey in the woods of Tiron in Perche, some 35 miles west of Chartres in France)...
monks (originally from Tiron, near
ChartresChartres is a town and commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in north-central France It is located southwest of Paris in central France.-Geography:...
, in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
) who had moved from the nearby Selkirk Abbey. The monks constructed the Abbey on land granted to them by
King David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots . The youngest son of Malcolm III and Margaret, David spent most of his childhood in Scotland, but was exiled to England temporarily in 1093...
. The construction commenced in 1128, and when completed fifteen years later, in 1143, it was dedicated to
The Blessed VirginThe Blessed Virgin Mary, sometimes shortened to the Blessed Virgin or the Virgin Mary, is a traditional title used by most Christians and most specifically used by liturgical Christians such as Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, and some others to...
and
Saint JohnJohn the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles....
.
Kelso Abbey soon grew to be one of the wealthiest and grandest in
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, with much of its income coming from its vast estates in the
Border countryThe border country is the area either side of the Anglo-Scottish border including parts of the modern council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders, and parts of the English counties of Cumbria, County Durham and Northumberland...
. It was also the seat of the
Feudal LordshipA feudal lordship is a Scottish feudal title that is held en baroneum, which means that its holder, who is called a feudal lord, is also always a feudal baron. A feudal lordship is an ancient title of nobility in Scotland...
of
HolydeanHolydean is a Scottish feudal Crown Barony and Lordship which lies in Roxburghshire in the neighbourhood of Kelso, in the Borderlands of Scotland, along the River Tweed...
. The importance of the Abbey at that time was shown when
King James IIIJames III was King of Scots from 1460 to 1488. James was an unpopular and ineffective monarch owing to an unwillingness to administer justice fairly, a policy of pursuing alliance with the Kingdom of England, and a disastrous relationship with nearly all his extended family.His reputation as the...
of Scotland was crowned at the Abbey in 1460. However, the Abbey's proximity to the border with
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
led to it suffering damage from cross-border raids. It was first damaged in the
Anglo-Scottish warsThe Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the independent Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries....
at the start of the 1300s, but was later repaired by the monks.
The Abbey suffered serious damage during the
Earl of HertfordEdward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset was Lord Protector of England in the period between the death of Henry VIII in 1547 and his own indictment in 1549.-Background:...
's "
Rough WooingThe Rough Wooing was a term coined by Sir Walter Scott and H. E. Marshall to describe the Anglo-Scottish war pursued intermittently from 1544 to 1551. It followed from the failure of the 1543 Treaty of Greenwich to be ratified by the Scottish Parliament, by which the infant Mary Queen of Scots was...
" campaign (the dispute over Mary Queen of Scots) against Scotland between 1544 and 1547, which caused considerable destruction to many of southern Scotland's abbeys, including those at
MelroseMelrose Abbey is a Gothic-style abbey in Melrose, Scotland. It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks, on the request of King David I of Scotland. It was headed by the Abbot or Commendator of Melrose. Today the abbey is maintained by Historic Scotland...
,
DryburghDryburgh Abbey, near Dryburgh on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders, was nominally founded on 10 November 1150 in an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Lord of Lauderdale and Constable of Scotland, and the Premonstratensian canons regular from Alnwick Abbey in Northumberland...
and
JedburghJedburgh Abbey is a ruined 12th century Augustinian abbey, situated in Jedburgh, in the Borders of Scotland. The abbey was founded in 1138.-External links:*...
. The
ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe which is generally deemed to have begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 although a number of precursors such as Jan Hus predate that event...
, which took place in Scotland in 1560, meant that Kelso Abbey had no chance to recover and rebuild. After further attacks and damage the Abbey was declared officially derelict in 1587.
After the end of the Reformation, the Abbey was partly used as a
parish churchA parish church, in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
between 1647 and 1771, with other parts of the structure being dismantled and used as a source of stone by locals for buildings in the town of
KelsoKelso , is a market town in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, located where the rivers Tweed and Teviot have their confluence. The town has a population of just over 6,000; it is regarded as one of the most charming and quaint towns in the area with its cobbled streets, elegant Georgian...
. In 1805, huge parts of the
ruinsRuins is a term used to describe the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete but which have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...
were cleared away, leaving just the west tower and its
transeptFull descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram.
For the periodical go to The Transept....
remaining to this day. A more recent addition (1933) has been a memorial cloister to the 8th Duke of Roxburghe built in the original style of the cloisters when the Abbey was first built.
The ruins are cared for by
Historic ScotlandHistoric Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government, responsible for historic monuments in Scotland.Its website states:It has direct responsibility for maintaining and running over 360 monuments in its care, about a quarter of which are manned and charge admission entry...
. No entrance charge.
See also
- Abbot of Kelso
The Abbot of Kelso was the head of the Tironensian monastic community at Kelso Abbey in the Scottish Borders. Originally, he was the Abbot of Selkirk, because from its foundation in 1113 by David, Prince of the Cumbrians until it was moved to Kelso by David and John, bishop of Glasgow in 1127...
, for a list of abbots and commendators