Kilwinning - History

History

North Ayrshire has a history of religion stretching back to the very beginning of missionary enterprise in Scotland. The Celtic Christians or Culdees of the period of St Columba and St Mungo found here, in this part of Scotland, a fertile field for the propagation of the faith. Kilmarnock, Kilbride, Kilbirnie, are all, like Kilwinning, verbal evidence of the existence of 'Cillean' or cells of the Culdee or Celtic Church.

That there existed a religious house at this place, in the early part of the seventh century, is a generally accepted truth; the holy father of the church being St Winin; after whom, in olden times, the town was called the name of Sagtoun/Segdoune (or Saint's town).

Winin has been identified by some scholars with St Finnian of Moville, an Irish saint of much earlier date; other authorities say he was a Welshman, called Vynnyn, while the Aberdeen Breviary (published 1507) gives his birthplace as Scotland. Due to spelling inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies, however, these two saints could have been the same person, or indeed there could have been many more going by similar names. It is also thought that Saint Finnian has been confused somewhere in historical documents with the Welsh Saint Ninian, who certainly lived in Scotland at some point. In the calendar of Scots saints, the date assigned to St Winin is 715. His festival was celebrated on 21 January, on which day (Old Style) a fair was held in Kilwinning and called St Winning's Day.

The town now retains the name of this saint as the church or cell of Winning. So why would St Winin and his band of monks build their mission on the site of the later abbey, very likely on the spot occupied today by the Abbey church, because it is an obvious building site, above a bridging-point on the river, suitable for a fortified mission station and commanding a view of the surrounding country.

So there is certain evidence that there was a Christian Church and a monastery of Culdees at Kilwinning several centuries before the foundation Kilwinning Abbey. The latter was the Tironensian Benedictine house founded by, probably, Richard de Morville, the Anglo-French Lord of Cunningham, who was a great territorial magnate of the district. It was founded somewhere between 1162 and 1169 1140-62. Timothy Pont, who had seen the cartulary of the abbey, now lost, wrote in 1608 that the date was 1191 and Richard de Morville was the founder; he was probably right about the founder, but Richard was dead by 1189. King David I gave the district of Cunninghame to his follower Hugh de Morville, Richard's father, making him responsible for the peace and security of what became North Ayrshire and the earlier dates.

The original town was situated at the Bridgend and Corsehill whilst the other bank of the river was the site of the abbey, its outbuildings, orchards, doocot, etc.

A community of Tironensian Benedictines was brought from Kelso and the abbey was soon richly endowed by royal and noble benefactors, possessing granges, large estates and the tithes of twenty parish churches giving a revenue of some £20,000 pounds sterling per year.

For nearly four centuries Kilwinning remained one of the most opulent and flourishing Scottish monasteries. The last abbot and commendator was Gavin Hamilton, who while favouring the Protestant Reformation doctrines, was a strong partisan of Mary, Queen of Scots. He was killed in a battle outside Edinburgh in June, 1571. The suppression and destruction of the abbey soon followed and its possessions, held for a time by the families of Glencairn and Raith, were merged in 1603 with the other properties of the one obvious recipient - Hugh, Earl of Eglinton, whose successors still own them. The Earls of Eglinton have taken some pains to preserve the remains of the buildings, which include the great west doorway with window above, the lower part of the south wall of nave and the tall gable of the south transept with its three lancet windows. The "fair steiple" was struck by lightning in 1809 and fell down five years later.

A little known fact tells of the link between Bernard, former Abbot of Kilwinning, and the Declaration of Arbroath. Bernard (died c. 1331) was a Tironensian abbot, administrator and bishop active in late thirteenth and early fourteenth-century Scotland, during the First War of Scottish Independence. He first appears in the records as Abbot of Kilwinning in 1296, disappearing for a decade before re-emerging as Chancellor of Scotland then Abbot of Arbroath.

A senior figure in the administration of Scotland during the 1310s and 1320s, he is widely said by modern writers to have drafted the Declaration of Arbroath, and although there is no direct evidence for this, he nevertheless probably played a role.

It has been suggested Bernard lies in a vault beneath the ruins of Kilwinning Abbey. The reference to Abbot Bernard's burial at Kilwinning comes in medieval source, the Chronicles of Mann. Exactly where in the Abbey it is not stated, but under the present Heritage Centre is possible as the North Tower was often the location of the Consistory Court and a place of special importance. Until about two hundred years ago various ranges of vaults beneath the abbey ruins were still partly accessible but with the rebuilding and extension of the Parish Church, no possible means of access is now discernible nor any indication of what other treasures may be there.

The Kilwinning Community Archaeology project carried out a dig in the Abbey in 2010.