Kelso Abbey

Kelso Abbey occupies ground overlooking the confluence of the Tweed and the Teviot, the site of what was once the Royal Burgh of Roxburgh and the intended southern centre of the developing Scottish kingdom. The abbacy that grew here became pre-eminently powerful in the heart of the Borders.

Monks of the Tironensian order, from Tiron near Chartres, founded the house at Roxburgh in 1128. The community had first come to Scotland around 1113 under the patronage of David I, then Prince of the Cumbrians during his brother Alexander I’s reign, with a commission to establish themselves near Selkirk. Why they abandoned that first site in 1128 is not known for certain, though David — by then King of Scots — was developing Roxburgh as a major economic and administrative centre for southern Scotland, and established the royal mint there among other institutions.

The abbey stood within sight of Roxburgh Castle across the Tweed and soon became one of the wealthiest and grandest in Scotland, much of its income drawn from vast estates in the Border country. John, abbot from 1160 to 1180, was the first abbot in Scotland granted the mitre.

After the Scottish royal dynasty lost the overlordship of Northumbria during the reign of William I, David’s southern capital found itself close to the English border and subject to attack throughout the Wars of Scottish Independence. The abbot in 1299 was an English appointee, Thomas de Durham, but the abbey defended its Scottish identity. Roxburgh Castle and Berwick upon Tweed, the major port serving the area, were frequently under English occupation through this period, and whenever the abbey was attacked the monks repaired the damage.

James II was killed within sight of the abbey in 1460, in a fatal accident during the campaign that recovered Roxburgh Castle that same year, and the hasty coronation of the infant James III followed here shortly afterwards. Between 1460 and 1513 control of the area was more stable and life at the abbey probably settled. After 1517 it came under English attack again.

The house effectively ceased to function through a combination of events in the mid sixteenth century. In the 1540s the buildings sustained major damage in attacks ordered by Henry VIII during the Rough Wooing, in which most of southern Scotland’s abbeys — Melrose, Dryburgh and Jedburgh among them — were targeted by forces under the Earl of Hertford. Plans to convert the abbey into a bastion fort were drawn up by Archangelo Arcano, an Italian military engineer in Henry’s service.

Mary of Guise, as Regent, sent building lime from Cousland in 1554, stored in the monks’ vaults — possibly intended for the fort rather than the abbey. The Reformation of 1560 brought monastic disestablishment, and the Tironensian community was no longer officially recognised. A small contingent of monks may have remained for some years, but after further attacks the abbey was declared officially derelict in 1587. Francis Stewart, fifth Earl of Bothwell, kept a house at the abbey, and James VI visited in January 1591. By the late sixteenth century the former monastic estates were in fully secular hands, and in 1607 they were granted as a secular lordship, titled Holydean, to the last commendator, Robert Ker of Cesford.

Between 1647 and 1771 part of the ruins was occupied by a parish kirk, while other parts were dismantled for stone by townspeople. That post-Reformation kirk appears to have been a compact vaulted structure inserted within the west transepts around 1748, and it included a vaulted gaol.

The site has never been fully excavated in modern times, but the evidence suggests a major building with two crossings. Only the west tower crossing and part of the infirmary stand today. The massive design and solid Romanesque manner of the tower indicate a very large building of formidable, almost semi-military appearance — a measure of how Roxburgh was regarded when the abbacy stood at the height of its power.