Kilwinning Abbey

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Kilwinning Abbey is a ruined abbey located in the centre of the town of Kilwinning, North Ayrshire.

It was a Tironensian monastic community, 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. It's last abbot, Gavin Hamilton, was killed outside Edinburgh in June 1571.^[1] 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.

The structure is now in the care of Historic Scotland, although part of it is run locally as a heritage centre.

[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

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Abbot of Kilwinning, for a list of abbots and commendators
• Auchentiber - details of the murder of Alexander Cunninghame, commendator of the abbey.
• Eglinton Country Park - details of the abbey doocot, etc.