Author: PeterheadLive

Experience the tranquil ruins of a Cistercian monastery founded in 1219. For more than 300 years, Deer Abbey was home to Cistercian monks.

There was an earlier community of Scottish monks or priests, never numbering more than fifteen.

The novitiate on the margins of the Book of Deer (oldest manuscript) record grants made to the Scottish religious community in the 12th century and a claim that it was founded by Saint Columba and Saint Drostan.

The history of the abbey after the 1210s is obscure until the 16th century, when it was beginning to be secularized.

The abbey was turned into a secular lordship for Commendator Robert Keith II (becoming Lord Altrie) in 1587.

The ruins of Deer Abbey are today found next to the A950 as it passes between two low hills just west of Old Deer.

When the abbey was dissolved in the Scottish Reformation it fell into decay, and some of the stones were used for other building projects.

In 1854 a family mausoleum was built over the west end of the abbey church. This was later pulled down, and in 1926 the diocese of Aberdeen purchased the site.

Though the abbey is at least nominally in the care of Historic Scotland, it still belongs to the Roman Catholic diocese of Aberdeen. Perhaps that helps explain why it seems somehow different from most Historic Scotland sites.

Part of that difference is the unusual site entrance; a high wall surrounds the abbey, which is entered through a striking neoclassical gateway with a prominent portico.

Though none of the remaining monastic buildings is terribly large, so many of the chambers survive at least in part, that it is easy to get an idea of the layout and structure of the abbey.

While working on the site in the field next to Deer Abbey in 2017 and 2018, archaeologists discovered artefacts mainly dating to the period of the Abbey itself (post-1219 AD), which is much later than the monastery.

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