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Publication Account
Date 1995
Event ID 1016735
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016735
Only the roofless church of this 13th-century priory still stands. Said to have been founded by Sir John Bisset about 1230, it is one of only three houses of the French Valliscaulian order in Britain, the other two being Pluscarden in Moray and Ardchattan in Argyll. The church was laid out on a cruciform plan, having a long narrow nave without aisles and no tower, and it was considerably altered in the later Middle Ages.
The west front with its tall lancet windows was rebuilt by Robert Reid, Prior from 1530 to 1558. The nave has windows of several dates, including the three eastern windows in the south wall which are of a rare trefoil design of 13th century date, and it was once divided from the choir by a wooden screen west of the transepts. Between the nave and the south transept is the arched tomb of Prior Mackenzie, built in an odd mixture of styles and perhaps a 16th-century reconstruction. The north transept was heightened and its stair turret added in the 15th century; it contains the monument of Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail dated 1491, and was restored in 1901 as the Kintail burial a isle. The chancel has early pointed windows framed in arcading, and the great east window, once filled with tracery and coloured glass, was inserted in the 15th century.
The priory buildings all lay south of the church. The monks' dormitory was next to the south transept, and the door to the night stair down which the monks passed from their dormitory to the nave can be seen in the south wall. Next to the transept stood the cloister, and in the south wall of the church are the projecting stumps of the walls of the west cloister range with traces of a first-floor fireplace. This building may at one time have contained the prior's lodging.
After the Reformation the priory passed to Commendators, or Lay Priors. By 1633 the church was said to be 'badly decayed'.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).
