page_title: Kelso Abbey
section_title: Post-reformation usage
hierarchical_section_title: Kelso Abbey / Post-reformation usage
caption_attribution_description: English: Kelso Abbey
context_page_description: Kelso Abbey is a ruined Scottish abbey in Kelso, Scotland. It was founded in the 12th century by a community of Tironensian monks first brought to Scotland in the reign of Alexander I. It occupies ground overlooking the confluence of the Tweed and Teviot waters, the site of what was once the Royal Burgh of Roxburgh and the intended southern centre for the developing Scottish kingdom at that time. Kelso thus became the seat of a pre-eminently powerful abbacy in the heart of the Scottish Borders.
  In the 14th century, Roxburgh became a focus for periodic attack and occupation by English forces and Kelso's monastic community survived a number of fluctuations in control over the area, restoring the abbey infrastructure after episodes of destruction and ultimately retaining Scottish identity. From 1460 onwards, life for the abbey probably grew more settled, but came once again under attack in the early sixteenth century. By the mid-century, through a combination of turbulent events, the abbey effectively ceased to function and the building fell into ruin.
context_section_description: Between 1647 and 1771, part of the abbey ruins was occupied by a parish kirk, with other parts of the structure being dismantled and used as a source of stone by locals for buildings in the town of Kelso. The post-reformation kirk appears to have been a compact vaulted structure intruded within the west transepts in about 1748. This adapted structure included a vaulted gaol. 
  In 1805, huge parts of the ruins were cleared away, including the parish church and the gaol, leaving only the abbey's west tower and transept remaining to this day. A more recent addition (1933) has been a memorial cloister to the 8th Duke of Roxburghe designed by Reginald Fairlie in the original style of the cloisters when the abbey was first built.
caption: South face of the surviving West tower of Kelso Abbey (viewed from the south east).
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