Dundrennan Abbey
This early 12th Century abbey was the centre for the Cistercian order in Galloway and be where Mary Queen of Scots spent her last night on Scottish soil.
In the early 12th Century David I set about modernising Scotland and as part of this policy he invited monastic communities from England and France to set up in Scotland. He gathered Cistercians from Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire and together with Fergus Lord of Galloway founded Dundrennan Abbey in 1142. Once established this grand abbey became the mother house for two further Cistercian abbeys in Galloway, Glenluce and Sweetheart.
During the Wars of Independence with England, Dundrennan Abbey suffered damage but it was the reformation that finished Dundrennan Abbey off, though not without a fight. The last abbot and the commendators the catholic Maxwells refused to demolish the abbey and in May 1568, Mary Queen of Scots was welcomed to Dundrennan on her way to exile in England. It was to be her last ever night in her native land.
The ruins of Dundrennan Abbey outline the transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture and serve as an effective lesson in the architectural development of the Cistercian Order, that got more elaborate as the wealth of the order grew. For 400 years Cistercians laboured at Dundrennan. The 'White Monks' so called because of the plain white robes they wore led extremely austere lives in the devotion to good. They lived in strict isolation from the outside world, serving long days of prayer and work to maintain their subsitance communities, their diet was spartan and vegetarian though did allow for a small amount of beer each day.
