Newbattle Abbey
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| Monastery information | |
|---|---|
| Order | Cistercian |
| Established | 1140 |
| Disestablished | 1587 |
| Mother house | Melrose Abbey |
| Diocese | Diocese of St Andrews |
| Controlled churches | Bathgate; Clerkington; Cockpen; Eassie; Heriot; Masterton; Newbattle |
| People | |
| Founder(s) | David I of Scotland |
| Important associated figures | Thomas Livingston |
Newbattle Abbey was a Cistercian monastery near the village of Newbattle in Midlothian, Scotland, which has subsequently become a stately home and then an educational institution.
It was founded in 1140 by monks from Melrose Abbey. The patron was King David I of Scotland (with his son Henry). Its church was dedicated in 1234. The abbey was burned by English royal forces in 1385 and once more in 1544. It became a secular lordship for the last commendator, Mark Kerr (Ker) in 1587.
Newbattle Abbey was a filiation of Melrose Abbey (itself a daughter of Rievaulx Abbey) and was situated, according to Cistercian usages, in a beautiful valley along the River South Esk. Rudolph, its first abbot, a strict and severe observer of the rule, devoted himself energetically to the erection of proper buildings. The church, cruciform in shape, was two hundred and forty feet in length, and the other buildings in proportion; for the community numbered at one period as many as eighty monks and seventy lay-brothers.
The abbey soon became prosperous, and famous for the regularity of its members, several of whom became well-known bishops. It was especially dear to the kings of Scotland, scarcely one of whom failed to visit it from time to time, and they were always its generous benefactors.
One of the principal sources of income was the coal mines in its possession, for these monks were among the first, if not the first, coal miners in Scotland. The earliest mention of coal in Scotland is to be found in a charter of an Earl of Winchester, granting to them a coal mine. In 1526 King James V granted them a petition to build a harbour at Morrison's Haven, and it is from this date that Aitchison's Haven Lodge was established as a stonemasons lodge. In 1531, the Abbot of Newbattle agreed with the Abbot of Dunfermline to work his coalmine at Prestongrange so that it would drain water from the neighboring mines which belonged to Dunfermline Abbey to the sea.
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