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Cistercian Abbeys: SADDELL Name: SADDELL Location: Saddell
village County: Argyll and Bute According to tradition, Saddell Abbey was initially
founded in 1160 by Somerled, the Warrior King, whose descendants
became the Clan of MacDonald and the Lords of the Isles, who ruled
over West Scotland until 1493. However, it seems that the original
plans were not realised until 1207 when Somerled’s son, Reginald,
provided the abbey with a site above Carradale bay, half way down
the Kintyre peninsula. A group of monks was brought over from Mellifont,
in Ireland, to colonise the house. It is therefore not surprising
to find that the surviving
architectural details are strongly Irish in character. The history
of Saddell Abbey is an obscure one. In c. 1507, James IV, in a
letter
to the Cardinal of St. Mark, declared that the abbey had not seen
monastic life within living memory and had fallen to the use of
laymen. James IV believed there was no hope of reviving monastic
life here and asked for permission to unite the place in perpetuity
to
the cathedral of Argyll, in the bishopric of Lismore. The request
was successful and some time after 26 November 1507, the pope
transferred the abbey to the bishop's
lands. In 1508, Bishop David Hamilton of
Argyll built himself a castle residence near Saddell, using much
of the
stone from the abbey. In 1512 James IV made a request to Pope Julius
II to move the cathedral of Lismore to the site of the abbey,
for
the inaccessibility of Lismore and its state of decay meant that
it was now deemed unsuitable.
However,
the
proposal
had
no
result and Saddell
Abbey was left to further ruin. After 1508 the bishops of Lismore
are occassionally styled ‘commendators of Saddell’.
Today the site is occupied by a graveyard. Some remains of the
abbey can
still be found on the site; these include the lower parts of the
presbytery, the north transept of the church and parts of the
refectory
walls. The graveyard is open to the public at all times.
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