Melrose Abbey - Scotland

Melrose Abbey sits on Abbey Street in Melrose, Scotland.  The present day abbey was founded by David I in 1136 when he invited Cistercian monks from Rievaulx to establish a house in Scotland.  They chose this location, just east of the original abbey at Old Melrose, called Little Fordell, which would later come to be known as Melrose.  Construction on the abbey lasted over fifty years, but had reached enough progress that in 1146 the building was dedicated.  The Cistercians were known as the White Monks because of the undyed white woolen clothing they wore.  Led by their abbott they led a life of work and prayer in Melrose, eventually raising 15,000 sheep and becoming one of the biggest wool producers in Britain.  In 1322, during the wars with England, the abbey was sacked by Edward II.  Robert the Bruce helped in the rebuilding and so devoted to the abbey was he that after his death he asked that his heart be buried here.  It is said that Bruce’s friend the Good Sir James of Douglas carried Robert’s heart with him on crusade in Spain, only to be killed by the Moors.  The heart eventually found its way back to Melrose in 1331.  In 1385 the English invaded Scotland once again and Melrose was burned to the ground.  The current abbey retains the features of the rebuilding which took place from 1389 to well into the early 1500’s, initially under the instigation of Richard II.  The English attacked the abbey for a third time in 1544, during the War of Rough Wooing, when the church was set on fire and the tombs desecrated.  In 1590 Dan Jo Watson, the last Cistercian monk at Melrose, died.  The abbey is now run by Historic Scotland.    

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