Coldingham Priory

The present Coldingham Priory building includes walls dated to around 1200. A monastery, open to both monks and nuns was originally founded in 635 by a Northumbrian Princess called Æbbe.

Coldingham Priory itself was founded in 1098 by Edgar, King of Scots and son of Malcolm Canmore and St Margaret. The first monastic community consisted of thirty Benedictine monks from Durham. Liberally endowed from the outset by Edgar, it received many further gifts and privileges from later Scottish kings and other pious donors, until it became one of the wealthiest religious houses in Scotland. As with other religious houses, its wealth came from land ownership, which brought income from timber management and from the rearing of sheep that produced wool for export.

The original Church, built in Edgar’s time, was destroyed by King John of England in 1216, but was replaced by a greater and more magnificent church, and despite a fire raised at the priory by its own prior, William Drax, in 1430. This was, allegedly, an attempt by him to conceal his theft of a large amount of money being carried by a messenger from the Scottish King to the English King. The priory was largely destroyed in 1545 during the great raid of the Earl of Hertford, which brought ruin also to the abbeys of Kelso, Dryburgh and Melrose.

Even the Reformation in 1560 and the Union of the Crowns of Scotland in 1603 did not end the priory’s role as an attractor of trouble for the village. The Priory was finally destroyed around 1650 when Oliver Cromwell besieged it in an attempt to evict some Royalist sympathisers sheltering inside. After a two-day siege, eventually all that remained were the north and east walls of the choir, which were later incorporated into the present day church.

Outside of the church building the grounds have been transformed into a community garden with a monastic theme, concentrating on plants with culinary, medicinal, and aromatic properties. There are also interpretation boards, explaining the function and history of the Priory.

References:

• visitberwickshirecoast.co.uk

Address

Coldingham, Berwickshire, United Kingdom

Details

Founded: 1098
Category: Religious sites in United Kingdom