The Time Tourist

Just off the main street in the lovely village of New Abbey in Dumfries, Scotland, is the beautiful remains of a Cistercian Monastery with the sweetest of names - Sweetheart Abbey . Sweetheart was established in 1273 by Lady Dervorgilla. Dervorgilla was the widow of Lord John Balliol who in life was Lord at Barnard Castle in County Durham. Following his death Dervorgilla had his heart embalmed and placed in a casket made of ivory, which she kept on her dining table. She then invited the poor and needy to come to her table as an act of charity. Just one of many she would undertake in her life, including the foundation of Sweetheart Abbey in memory of her late husband. Sweetheart was established as a daughter house to Dundrennan Abbey, which I wrote about in this previous blog post , and was conceived as a shrine to human and divine love. The church, as with all churches in the Cistercian order, was dedicated to St. Mary and is in the typical cruciform shape, symbolising the ...

Near Kirkcudbright in the lowlands of Scotland stands a tranquil and beautiful monastery once home to Cistercian monks, Dundrennan Abbey. Dundrennan was founded in 1142 by monks from Rievaulx in Yorkshire and was one of the largest monastic sites in Scotland. It is built in the typical Cistercian layout with the church to the north and the domestic buildings to the south. King David I granted the foundation of Dundrennan and likely saw it as a way of expressing his support of the reform of the Scottish Church. The abbey went on to become the mother house of two more Cistercian houses in Scotland - Glenluce Abbey, founded in 1191, and Sweetheart Abbey, founded in 1273. Dundrennan was the place that Mary Queen of Scots spent her last hours in Scotland. She had been imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, having been forced to abdicate the Scottish throne. She managed to escape and raised an army of 6,000 to go into battle to reclaim the throne. She was defeat at the Battle of Langside ...