Kilwinning Abbey

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Kilwinning Abbey as it stands today.

Kilwinning Abbey was a Tironensian monastic community located at Kilwinning in Cunningham (now in North Ayrshire, Scotland). It was founded sometime between 1162 and 1167. The patron is not known for certain, but it is likely to have been Richard de Morville, Lord of Cunningham, perhaps with the encouragement and assistance of King William of Scotland. The abbey, located far away in the west at a distance from the core of Lowland Scotland, is not very well recorded, and few of its records have come down to posterity. In the 16th century the abbey was gradually securalized and protestantized. In 1592, it was transformed into a free barony for William Melville. Extensive ruins of the abbey have survived, and make up one of the main tourist attractions in North Ayrshire.

[edit] Bibliography

Cowan, Ian B. & Easson, David E., Medieval Religious Houses: Scotland With an Appendix on the Houses in the Isle of Man, Second Edition, (London, 1976), p. 69
Watt, D.E.R. & Shead, N.F. (eds.), The Heads of Religious Houses in Scotland from the 12th to the 16th Centuries, The Scottish Records Society, New Series, Volume 24, (Edinburgh, 2001), pp. 127-30