Jedburgh Abbey

About Jedburgh Abbey

There has been a religious foundation associated with Jedburgh for many centuries. Ecgred, Bishop of Lindisfarne in AD 830, granted land to the church of Lindisfarne and a place of worship was built in this area. There is no known building on this site until the 11th or 12th century. A priory was founded by King David I (1124-53) in 1138 when he invited Augustinian canons from Beauvais in France to settle in Jedburgh. By 1154, the status of the priory had been raised to that of an Abbey. This indicated clearly to the English, the power of the King and the independence of the Scottish church.
The first attack on the Abbey was in 1305, in the early phases of the Wars of Independence, when it was wrecked and plundered by the English under Sir Richard Hastings. The Abbey was thrice ravaged in the 15th century, in 1410, 1416 and again in 1464. In 1523, English troops under the Earl of Surrey, put the Abbey to the torch once more. Repair work was undertaken only to have the buildings burned again by Sir Ralph Ewer in 1544 and the Earl of Hertford in 1545. Hertford was carrying out the orders of Henry VIII who wanted Queen Mary to marry his son -Prince Edward -but his ‘Rough Wooing’ proved unsuccessful.
English forces occupied the town once more in 1548 but the following year, the Scots were reinforced by a strong contingent of the French army and the English withdrew. The Abbey which by this time was ruinous was suppressed in 1559 as part of the religious Reformation in Scotland. This meant that the monks could no longer recruit new members to the order.
The Abbey was then used as the parish church until 1875 when the new parish church was built on the opposite side of the river to the abbey. The Abbey then ceased to be a place of worship. After this, the architect Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, under the guidance of the Marquis of Lothian, started restoration work on the Abbey. In 1913, the Abbey was taken in to guardianship by H.M. Office of Works and is now a Historic Scotland monument.