Abbey of Deer (Deir)

Although, this was my second visit to the Abbey of Deer, the ruins still amaze me as to their age and the stature of what the abbey must once have been like. This was my friend and tour guide Oliver’s first encounter, and we both enjoyed it immensely.

The Abbey of Deer (formerly Dier) was founded in 1219 by William Comyn, Earl of Buchan and dedicated to St. Mary. “Comyn chose to found Deer Abbey on the site of a Monastery established here some 600 years earlier by St Drostan, a follower of St Columba. Drostan remained at the monastery until his death in c. 606.”

“This monastery is also associated with the ninth-century gospel book, known as the ‘Book of Deer.’ The author was probably a monk at Deer, living some time during the eighth century.” http://www.bookofdeer.co.uk/bookofdeer.html It had “later additions in Gaelic in the 1100s describing the foundation of the original monastery (though 500 years after the events they reported). The Book of Deer was discovered in 1860 and is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum Library in Cambridge.”

“Deer Abbey was always a small community, with never more than 15 monks at any one time.” http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/abbeys/deer.php “A very considerable demesne was attached to the abbey, and its revenue amounted to £572. 8. 6. in money, and sixty-five chalders, seven bolls, one firlot, three pecks of meal, fourteen bolls of wheat, and fourteen chalders and ten bolls of bear.” http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43431 (Not sure what this all means, but sounds fascinating.)

“Like other Scottish abbeys, Deer's useful life came to an end with the Reformation in 1560. And in common with many, it then became the property of secular lairds. Deer Abbey ended up in the hands of the Fergusons of Pitfour.” (Their land bordered the Russells of Aden.)

“The abbey buildings were said to have remained structurally complete (if not in good repair) until 1809. But then the Fergusons turned the site of the abbey into a walled garden, apparently recycling much of the stone from the abbey to build the magnificent wall that still surrounds the ruins that remain.

Then in 1854 an heir, Admiral Ferguson of Pitfour, used much of what remained to build a family mausoleum where the east end of the abbey church had stood.” Subsequent he used the stones for other developments on the Pitfour Estate, including Pitfour House itself, demolished in 1927, an observatory designed primarily to watch over the neighbouring racecourse rather than the night sky, a canal linking the estate to the sea, a large loch built to give the excuse to build a large bridge, and on the loch's banks, the remarkably grand Temple of Theseus, a six-bay Greek Doric temple with 36 pillars and containing a pool said to be home to Admiral Ferguson's pet alligators...



As I had a section about this abbey written into my novel, I was particularly grateful to be able to go back and look at this Cistercian abbey in more detail, and to check on my facts. Luckily, it was as I remembered it so that section of my book doesn’t need to be re-written as others do.

I have to confess that as I sauntered around and took more photographs, I had a sudden difference in feeling when I stepped in the centre of the outline of the transepts and crossing of the abbey church. That is when I stepped into the exact centre of the cross-shaped outline of the foundations I had quite a wonderful feeling ripple through me…quite peaceful actually.

Although we didn’t linger, the site was well worth seeing again….. (NB: My camera was on the wrong setting, hence the peculiar pinkish tinge to all the photos here.)