This page will soon be a brief introduction to some of the other places in and around the River Forth which had some form of connection with or similarity to Inchcolm, its institutions, cultures, and people. Several other monasteries, priories and abbeys were directly associated with Inchcolm, not least Dunkeld Cathedral in Perthshire (click here for a streetmap), which allegedly held the relics of St. Columba, and more-or-less "owned" Inchcolm in its Augustinian phase - indeed, the bishops of Dunkeld held Inchcolm in highest esteem of all their foundations, and Inchcolm was one of their favoured places for ecclesiastical and political conferences and ceremonies. The other main ecclesiastical centre for this region was, of course, St. Andrews Cathedral in Fife (click here for a streetmap).
Not surprisingly, some of the other foundations within the Dunkeld/St. Andrews network also had probable Columban, Anchorite, or Culdee origins, such as Inchmahome Priory on an island in the Lake of Menteith in Stirlingshire (click here for a streetmap). The vast majority of important foundations, though, certainly have Celtic Christian roots, and significantly, several were also built on islands, either in lochs or the Firth of Forth, such as St. Serf's in Loch Leven, preserving both the ancient Celtic reverence for water, and also the solitary traditions of the Desert Fathers:
This foundation dates back to Celtic times (possibly a Culdee priory prior to the ninth century), and is situated on St. Serf's Island in Loch Leven, Perthshire, not far North of Inchcolm. Its founder is said to have been St. Servanus (St. Serf), who is known in the hagiographies as the founder of Culross Abbey, and the mentor and teacher of St. Kentigern. He is also said to have met St. Adomnán on Inchkeith Island in the Forth, although their respective dates make that unlikely. A further saintly association is in the figure of St. Ronan, thought to have been one of the priors of the foundation, possibly even being buried within its grounds.[1] Click here for a streetmap.
St. Serf's Island, Loch Leven, from the South
The precise date of St. Serf's foundation is unknown, but according to the Registry of the Priory of St. Andrews, a "new" church was apparently dedicated there to St. Mary in 838,[2] suggesting the existence of an an earlier institution. The Registry goes on to claim that, shortly after, in 842, a Pictish king, "Brude son of Degard" formally granted the island to the Culdee anchorites who already lived there. This Brude is, presumably, the last Pictish king according to the "A" text of The Pictish Chronicle, one "Bred", who reigned for only one year ("Bred uno anno regnaverunt"). In the Scottish Gaelic era, around 930, and during St. Ronan's period as prior, the anchorite establishment came under the rule of the Bishop of St. Andrews, although this may not yet have been the end of the Culdee system. That certainly came by 1145, when King David formally introduced Augustinian rule. On 21st August 1243, Bishop Benham consecrated a further church on the island dedicated to Saints Stephen and Moac, and by 1580, the foundation was in the specific possession of St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews. Indeed, according to one theory, St. Andrew's relics themselves were taken to St. Serf's either by the early Culdees who wanted to keep them out of the hands of the new Roman Catholic Church, or later, to preserve them during the tumultuous period of the Reformation, which, of course, finally ended the Augustinian rule at St. Serf's and brought about the discontinuation of the foundation.[3]
In the nineteenth century, the site was visited by Andrew Kerr, FSAS, whose paper titled "Description of the Ecclesiastical Remains Existing upon St. Serf's Island, Lochleven"[4] includes various sketches of what was then remaining on the site. At that point, the main surviving structure he conjectured to be the remains of an early chapel, although in modern times, it had been converted into a shepherd's dwelling:
The Chapel / Shepherd's House, (Kerr, 1882)
The following are Kerr's ground plan of this building, indicating the area which he excavated and thought to be the site of the original chapel's chancel, and elevation sketches:
Ground Plan of the Chapel (Kerr, 1882)
Elevation Sketches of the Chapel (Kerr, 1882)
According to Kerr, this building is not one of the early churches on the island, but can be stylistically dated to the Norman era, probably from the eleventh century, perhaps between 1040 and 1093.[5] Kerr's team also found that the local landowner had begun an archaeological investigation of the monastery foundations themselves, which lay some 25 yards to the West of the chapel building:
Plan of the Monastery (Kerr, 1882)
The main present remains there are a rectangular structure dated to the twelfth century, presumably the church itself. Photographs to follow, as soon as we can find a local boatman to get us there!
One vague Inchcolm connection is that Andrew Wyntoun, who wrote The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland around the same time as John of Fordun and Walter Bower's epic Scotichronicon, was the Prior of St. Serf's before his death in 1420. Clearly, the Augustinians of the Forth region were the primary historians of their age.
St. Bridget's Kirk is literally on the shoreline at Dalgety Bay on the Forth of Forth, and is in fact the site of the old (now disappeared) town of Dalgety. The church functioned as Dalgety's Auld Parish Kirk until 1830, but by 1836, the town itself was gone, with both church and people moving immediately North-west to the modern town of Dalgety Bay. Inchcolm Island is literally just around a small headland from the bay, which is the most likely natural landing-point for the abbey's monks travelling to the Northern mainland. Indeed, Dalgety Bay is still a harbour to this day. Click here for a streetmap.
Although the actual foundation date of St. Bridget's is unknown, it is first mentioned in Inchcolm Abbey's Papal Bull of 1178 as a possession of the abbey:
And these possessions we have deemed it right to enumerate in the following specific terms, to wit: The place itself, in which the aforesaid church is situated, with all that pertains to it; the church of Aberdour, with its pertinents; the church of Dalgathin (Dalgety), with its pertinents...[6]
However, from this, we can easily deduce the fact that the kirk was already properly established prior to 1178, and this would seem to be partially supported by its dedication to the Gaelic St. Bridget, who is otherwise a rare dedication on the South-eastern coast, which was one of the first areas to make the transition from a Gaelic to a Scots-speaking culture. Alternatively, it could also be that the Gaelic aspect of the dedication could be explained as connected to that of Inchcolm's association with the great Columba, and even the dedications to Adomnán on Inchkeith and at Dalmeny on the Southern shore of the River Forth in Lothian. Perhaps it is further evidence of at least a Gaelic-aware, if not substantially Gaelic elite working within the local priesthood at an early date. Furthermore, with Dalgety being in Fife, it is also in ancient Pictavia, and the Pictish Church itself was heavily influenced by Iona - as such, some form of Gaelic component to the early history of St. Bridget's in Dalgety is highly likely. The kirk was re-consecrated to the Gaelic saint in 1244.
What currently remains of the kirk is primarily a roofless medieval core in the East, and a seventeenth-century tower in the West, which survives almost intact:
St. Bridget's From the Shoreline
The older core consists of a simple, single-chambered rectangular structure common to pre-Reformation churches in Scotland, with further aisles added after the Reformation:
The Eastern End, From the South
The Eastern End, Interior
Although early sources suggest that the monks of Inchcolm used the kirk at Aberdour as their primary mainland location, it would seem, if only by reasons of proximity and the function of the natural harbour at Dalgety, that it is likely that the original primary location North of the River could, in fact, have been St. Bridget's. However, further research would be required in order to prove this, not least since the Papal Bull of 1178 also grants Aberdour to the abbey, proving that it also existed at that time.
more to follow...
[1] Andrew Kerr, "Description of the Ecclesiastical Remains Existing upon St. Serf's Island, Lochleven", in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1881-1882), p.160. [back]
[2] ibid., p.161. [back]
[3] ibid. [back]
[4] op cit. [back]
[5] ibid. p.165. [back]
[6] Pope Alexander III , Papal Bull of Institution (1178) [back]