Balmerino
Abbey, a Cistercian monastery situated on the south bank
of the River Tay in North Fife was founded in 1229 by the
widowed queen of William the Lyon, then destroyed during
the Reformation. A Spanish Chestnut tree here is one of
the oldest of its kind in the country.
Balmerino Abbey, was the landing-place of the Lady Ermengarde
--second wife and widow of William the Lyon, daughter of
the Earl of Beaumont, and great-granddaughter of the Conqueror,
mother of Alexander II, and ancestress of the succeeding
sovereigns of Scotland -- when, out of gratitude for the
health and the peace she had found at 'Balmurynach '--there
is a choice of 36 ways of spelling the name--she resolved
to plant here a house of Cistercian monks, dedicated to
the Virgin and to her relative 'the most holy King Edward,'
the Confessor.
This resolve, made sometime at the beginning of the second
quarter of the thirteenth century, was promptly carried
into execution, and on St Lucy's Day, 1229, a company of
monks from Melrose, under Alan, their first Abbot, were
able to enter and take possession. The Abbey was a monument
of sacrifice, as well as of gratitude, for the foundress
had first to purchase with a thousand marks the lands representing
nearly the whole of the present parish, to which the Abernethies
of Carpow had succeeded as Lay Abbots of the Culdee seat
of Abernethy. It was built of a red stone from Nydie, beyond
the Eden. In its great days it must have been a beautiful
habitation of peace, with a plan conforming to the Mother
Church of Melrose, in having the cloister on the north side
of the sanctuary and in other details.
Ermengarde and her son Alexander, another great benefactor,
visited here repeatedly. They would ferry over from Dundee,
or from Invergowrie, when coming from the royal palace at
Forfar; for the Queen much affected the haunts, as well
as the religious example, of her grandmother-in-law, the
saintly Margaret. In 1234 the body of the foundress
was laid to rest here. But, like other landmarks of Balmerino,
the grave will be looked for in vain. Her stone coffin,
containing her skeleton, was supposed to have been found,
on the spot indicated by the records, by the tenant of the
farm while, in the summer of 1831, he was engaged in 'carting
away hewn stones from the piers and south wall of the church'
to build a house in St Andrews. It was covered by a graveslab,
which was 'broken in pieces,' while the bones found within
were 'dispersed as curiosities through the country.'
Mary Queen of Scots was certainly a visitor here in 1565,
and more than likely lived in the Abbot's House as a guest
of Sir John Hay, the first Lay Commendator of the Abbey.
Later the lands were erected into a barony, in favour of
Sir James Elphinston of Barnton, the first Lord Balmerino,
who after being sentenced to death, died quietly of a 'fever'
at the Abbey. The more ill-fated Arthur, the sixth lord,
who suffered for his part in the 1745 rebellion, is supposed
to have hidden in the ruins, after an earlier adventure
in 1715, and before he escaped to a vessel in the Firth
of Tay which took him to France.
Of the Church itself there remains above ground only portions
of the walls of the nave and north transept. Enough of the
Chapter-House is left to show how endowed it was in ornament
and proportions. What remains of Balmerino Abbey is kept
now kept in good order and condition. Although Daniel Defoe,
who visited it in 1727, saw 'nothing worthy of observation,
the very ruins being almost eaten up by time,' it is well
deserving this reverent care, if only for the ancient trees
that are gathered around it. Chieftains among these are
a magnificent old Spanish chestnut and a walnut of like
or superior age. Another reason to visit Balmerino is the
beautiful views of the Firth of Tay, the Carse of Gowrie,
and the Sidlaw range of hills, with glimpses of the more
remote Grampians, including Ben Voirlech on Loch Earn -
a distance of about fifty miles in a straight line.
