Culross Abbey

The abbey was founded in 1217 by Malcolm I, Mormaer or Earl of Fife, and was first colonised by monks from Kinloss Abbey. Culross may have been chosen to establish an abbey because this was the birthplace of Saint Mungo. It is evident that the abbey was built over the earlier Pictish church supposedly founded by Saint Serf in the 6th century, as witnessed by the presence in the ruined Cistercian church of early medieval carved stones and from a ninth-century reference to a church of St Serf at Culross (Cuileann Ros) in a Gaelic list of the mothers of various saints. The original 13th-century abbey was cruciform in plan, without aisles. By the late 15th century the lay brothers had ceased to…