Beauly Priory: A Valliscaulian and Cistercian Monastic Church in Scotland
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Scotland
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page7 sections
History
Beauly Priory is a medieval monastic site in Scotland, United Kingdom, founded around 1230 as a Valliscaulian community. The Valliscaulian Order was a French monastic order established at Val-des-Choux near Dijon. The priory stood at Insula de Achenbady, on the site now occupied by Beauly in Inverness-shire, and belonged to the Diocese of Moray.
Foundation and Valliscaulian administration
The priory’s founder is uncertain. Alexander II of Scotland, John Byset, or both have been identified in connection with its establishment. Its mother house, the principal monastery from which a religious house originated or was administered, was Val-des-Choux in France. Beauly controlled the churches of Abertarff, Comar, and Conveth.
Beauly was one of three Scottish houses of the Valliscaulian Order, together with Ardchattan Priory and Pluscarden Priory. Ardchattan later joined the Cistercians, another Western Christian monastic order, and became a cell of Beauly. French monks and the recently settled landowner John Byset helped create a strong French-speaking presence in the surrounding area. The name Beauly is associated with beau lieu, meaning “beautiful place,” and the river was named in connection with the same tradition.
Expansion, secularisation, and disestablishment
The priory was enlarged during the fifteenth century, with much of the rebuilding financed by the Fraser family of Lovat. After the papal suppression of the Valliscaulian Order, Beauly transferred to the Cistercians on 16 April 1510. It was then gradually secularised and administered by commendatory abbots. A commendator, or commendatory abbot, governed a monastery and held its revenues without necessarily leading a resident monastic community.
Robert Reid became commendator in 1531. During his tenure, part of the church was rebuilt after severe damage caused by lightning in 1541. Reid later became Bishop of Orkney and built the Bishop’s Palace there.
After the Reformation, the priory could no longer support its former religious community. Its buildings were sold into private ownership, while the church continued to serve as a burial ground for a long period. A royal charter transferred the priory’s lands to the Bishop of Ross on 20 October 1634, formally disestablishing the institution. Stones from the monastic buildings were later reused in local construction, including the fort at Inverness built by Oliver Cromwell’s troops in the seventeenth century.
Burials and later remembrance
Beauly remained associated with important local and regional families after its monastic life ended. Hugh Fraser, 3rd Lord Lovat, was buried there after he was killed at the Battle of the Shirts in 1544. Kenneth Mackenzie, 7th of Kintail, who died in 1492, was also buried at Beauly, and his tomb was still extant in 1910.
John Mackenzie, 9th of Kintail, who died in 1561, and Kenneth Mackenzie, 10th of Kintail, who died on 6 June 1568 after fighting at the Battle of Langside on 13 May, were buried in the Mackenzie’s aisle. Colin Cam Mackenzie, 11th of Kintail, who died at Redcastle in 1594, was also buried at Beauly. Walter Ross, son of William Ross, provost of Tain, was buried there after dying from wounds received at the Battle of Glen Affric in 1721.
In August 1818, John Keats and Charles Brown stopped at Beauly while travelling to Cromarty. Their visit was associated with the collaborative poem On Some Skulls in Beauley Abbey, near Inverness, written in early August 1818 or possibly several weeks or months later. Brown wrote most of the lines, while Keats contributed the first line, the first four words of the second line, and three stanzas.
Beauly Priory became state property in 1909 and is managed by Historic Scotland. The ruins are protected as a scheduled monument, a legally protected site of archaeological or historical importance, and the surviving church is also listed as a Category A historic building, a designation for buildings of national architectural or historic significance.
Remains
The surviving remains consist of the priory church. The cloister, a covered monastic walkway arranged around an open courtyard, stood south of the church but has been completely lost. The church preserves the outline of a medieval building that developed from a simple rectangular plan into a cruciform arrangement, meaning a floor plan shaped like a cross.
The priory church
The church was built in 1230 as a rectangle oriented from east to west, with one chapel attached to its north side. This chapel probably served first as the sacristy, the room used to store sacred vessels, vestments, and other items needed for worship. Fifteenth-century alterations added a second chapel on the south side and gave the church its cruciform plan. Later in the same century, another chapel was added on the north side and dedicated to the Holy Cross. That later chapel has since disappeared.
The original north chapel was converted into a mausoleum, a burial chamber, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Above the main entrance on the west side is the coat of arms of Bishop Robert Reid. The west end was rebuilt during Reid’s tenure as commendator after the serious lightning damage of 1541. These surviving alterations preserve the physical evidence of both the church’s medieval expansion and its sixteenth-century repair.
Burial areas
The church continued as a burial place after the Reformation. Burials associated with the Mackenzie family included Kenneth Mackenzie, 7th of Kintail, whose tomb was reported as extant in 1910, and John Mackenzie, 9th of Kintail, Kenneth Mackenzie, 10th of Kintail, and Colin Cam Mackenzie, 11th of Kintail, who were buried in the Mackenzie’s aisle.
