Coldingham Priory was an important ecclesiastical site for
hundreds of years
A long awaited scheme for the conservation and interpretation of Coldingham Priory ruins, and the creation of a community garden within the grounds, is now under way.
The planned conservation measures will include the careful consolidation of the ruined structures and the special treatment of the unique and unusual collection of carved stones
The garden will reflect its historic setting with planting of flowering shrubs and small, old varieties of fruit trees where the monks would have grown fruit, vegetables, medicinal herbs and kept bees. These areas will attract butterflies and the local primary school will also use it as an eco-resource. A circular stone seat with the cross of St Cuthbert marked out in Caithness stone will be a central feature.
What you see today is actually the end product of the better part of 1000 years (and quite possibly 1400 years) of building and rebuilding on this site, interspersed with all too frequent destruction caused by attacks from passing armies, by the Reformation and even, on one occasion, by its own Prior.
The starting point for the story of Coldingham Priory is in 635, when a monastery open to both monks and nuns was established two miles to the north near St Abbs by a Northumbrian Princess called Aebbe. She was later made a saint, St Aebbe. In 683 fire largely destroyed the monastery. At the time some held this to be divine retribution for what was, perhaps euphemistically, called "disorderly behaviour" among the monks and nuns here. Whatever the truth of this, by one account the monastery was soon rebuilt, though only for nuns. This account goes on to tell how Vikings completely destroyed the monastery in 870.
In 1098 King Edgar asked the Benedictines at Durham to establish a foundation on a site a little inland from the earlier monastery. By 1100 what is referred to as The Old Church had been built, covering much of the area of the church you see today, though rather narrower than it. By 1147 this had developed into a priory under the authority of Durham.
In 1216 Coldingham Priory was destroyed by King John of England. It was quickly rebuilt on a very much grander scale, incorporating a huge priory church. The church you see today shows the size of the choir of the 1200s church, and incorporates two of its walls. To get a sense of the scale of the whole building you have to imagine a tower at the west end of today's building, large transepts to the north and south of the tower, and a nave, longer than the choir, extending still further to the west. The nave was in turn flanked by broad aisles.
In 1430 part of the priory was burned down by its own Prior, William Drax, possibly in an attempt to conceal his theft of a large amount of money being carried by a messenger from the Scottish King to the English King. In 1509 the priory was finally detached from Durham and placed under the authority of Dunfermline Abbey. Invading English armies damaged the priory in 1537 and 1547 and it seems to have been already fairly run down by the time of the Reformation in 1560. The finally blow came in 1650, when troops opposing Cromwell were positioned in the priory. After a two day siege by Cromwell's artillery, little was left beyond the north and east walls of the choir.
In 1662 new south and west walls were built, allowing the choir of the church to be returned to use. These walls were rebuilt in the 1850s, when the priory assumed pretty much the form you see it in today. The column bases south west of today's church were formerly part of the south transept, and parts of the south and west walls of the south transept also remain: as does the arch that once connected the south transept to the south aisle of the nave. Of the domestic buildings that once surrounded the cloister garth south of the church, the low walls and rubble you see today are all that remain.
After finding the cache, continue along the footpath. At the road turn left, then after a few yards turn right down a narrow footpath to the Bogan Burn. At the burn go right to cross the stone bridge and then left to join the footpath through the Fisher's Brae Conservation Area towards cache No 3.