Qualla: Inchaffray Abbey

Inchaffray Abbey: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On 23 June 1314, the night before Bannockburn, Abbot Maurice of Inchaffray walked the lines of the Scottish army carrying the relics of St Fillan. The Scots were outnumbered, and Edward II's English host lay across the burn waiting for morning. Maurice came from a small abbey in a marshy patch of Strathearn, midway between Perth and Crieff, surrounded by water and famous for eels. By the next afternoon Robert the Bruce had won the most important battle in Scottish history, and the abbot of Inchaffray had a place in the national story that the abbey itself would never lose, even after time reduced it to a single gable-end wall.

Read more: Inchaffray Abbey on Qualla

Image: Public domain

Inchaffray Abbey: Island of the Offerings

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The name puzzles modern Gaelic speakers. Folk etymology says Inchaffray comes from innis abh reidh, the island of the smooth water, which sounds plausible until you find the earliest Latin form: Insula missarum, the island of the masses. In Gaelic the mass is oifrend, in Welsh of...

Read more: Inchaffray Abbey on Qualla

Image: Public domain

Inchaffray Abbey: Rich, Then Poor

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1275, the Scottish church was assessed for a crusading tithe. Inchaffray's annual income came in at 246 pounds, fourth among all Augustinian houses in Scotland, exceeded only by St Andrews, Scone, and Holyrood. The abbey's lands and dependent churches reached across the countr...

Read more: Inchaffray Abbey on Qualla

Image: Michael Garlick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Inchaffray Abbey: Bannockburn and Flodden

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell, CC BY-SA 4.0. The abbots of Inchaffray were political figures as much as religious ones. Maurice, who blessed the army at Bannockburn, carried the relics of St Fillan, a saint particularly associated with the Bruce family. Two centuries later, in 1514, the commendatory abbot Laurence Oliphant ...

Read more: Inchaffray Abbey on Qualla

Image: Tom Parnell | CC BY-SA 4.0

Inchaffray Abbey: A Road Through the Ruins

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photograph by David Kelly, Public domain. In 1816 a road was driven straight across the abbey site, demolishing most of what remained. The destruction is hard to picture from the surviving photograph of the ruins as they appeared in 1794: still substantial walls, a recognisable abbey footprint, monuments and burial marke...

Read more: Inchaffray Abbey on Qualla

Image: Photograph by David Kelly | Public domain