Balmerino Abbey

Balmerino Abbey
Balmerino Fife
National Trust for Scotland
Grid reference:	NO358247
Information
Website:	Balmerino Abbey

Balmerino Abbey is a former abbey in Fife, at Balmerino. In its day it was a Cistercian community and also known as St Edward's Abbey. It is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland.

Monks from Melrose Abbey established a Cistercian house here in 1227 to 1229, with the patronage of Ermengarde de Beaumont and King Alexander II. It remained a daughter house of Melrose. It had approximately 20 monks at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but declined in that century.

In December 1547, Balmerino Abbey was burned by an English force, and burned again in 1559 by Scottish Protestants. In 1606 and 1607 it was created as a secular lordship for James Elphinstone, 1st Lord Balmerino.

Current condition

The abbey lies in ruins. It is under the stewardship of the National Trust for Scotland, and a small entrance fee is requested at an honesty box, with no ticket booth or manned presence on-site. The ruin consists of a substantial section of the east wall of the main church. More substantial ruins of some of the associated buildings exist to the side of this but access is currently prohibited due to their poor state of repair.

As of summer 2007, a sign on site states that entrance fees will be used to contribute towards a possible future stabilisation of these ruins in order to improve safety for visitors to enter once again.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Balmerino Abbey)

• Balmerino Abbey – National Trust for Scotland

Books

• Cowan, Ian B. & Easson, David E., Mediæval Religious Houses: Scotland With an Appendix on the Houses in the Isle of Man, Second Edition, (London, 1976), pp. 72–3
• Dixon, Piers, 'Balmerino Abbey: Resurvey and Topographic Analysis', in T. Kinder (ed.), Life on the Edge: the Cistercian Abbey of Balmerino, Fife (Citeaux, Commentarii cistercienses 59)(Forges-Chimay 2008), pp. 163–67
• Fawcett, Richard, 'Balmerino Abbey: the Architecture', in T. Kinder (ed.), Life on the Edge: the Cistercian Abbey of Balmerino, Fife (Citeaux, Commentarii cistercienses 59)(Forges-Chimay 2008), pp. 81–118
• Hammond, Matthew, 'Queen Ermengarde and the Abbey of St Edward, Balmerino', in T. Kinder (ed.), Life on the Edge: the Cistercian Abbey of Balmerino, Fife (Citeaux, Commentarii cistercienses 59)(Forges-Chimay 2008), pp. 11–35
• Kerr, Julie, 'Balmerino Abbey: Cistercians on the East Coast of Fife', in T. Kinder (ed.), Life on the Edge: the Cistercian Abbey of Balmerino, Fife (Citeaux, Commentarii cistercienses 59)(Forges-Chimay 2008), pp. 37–60
• Márkus,Gilbert, 'Reading the Place-Names of a Monastic Landscape', in T. Kinder (ed.), Life on the Edge: the Cistercian Abbey of Balmerino, Fife (Citeaux, Commentarii cistercienses 59)(Forges-Chimay 2008), pp. 119–62
• Oram, Richard D., 'A Fit and Ample Endowment? The Balmerino Estate, 1228-1603', in T. Kinder (ed.), Life on the Edge: the Cistercian Abbey of Balmerino, Fife (Citeaux, Commentarii cistercienses 59)(Forges-Chimay 2008), pp. 61–80
• Watt, D.E.R. & Shead, N.F. (eds.), The Heads of Religious Houses in Scotland from the 12th to the 16th Centuries, The Scottish Records Society, New Series, Volume 24, (Edinburgh, 2001), pp. 12–15