Inchaffray Abbey

Inchaffray Abbey lies in Strathearn, Perth and Kinross, beside the village of Madderty between Perth and Crieff. The site once formed an island surrounded by marshes known for eels, though only an earth mound and a few walls remain above ground. The name Inchaffray comes from the Latin Insula missarum, meaning ‘island of the masses,’ and earlier from Gaelic innis abh reidh, ‘island of the smooth water.’ A priory was founded here in 1200 by Gilbert, Earl of Strathearn, and his wife Maud d’Aubigny, in memory of their son buried on the spot two years before. The Augustinians from Scone took over the site, turning the priory into an abbey in 1221. The abbey held lands across Scotland, from Uist in the west to Balfron in the south, and its income reached 246 pounds a year by 1275. It commissioned the Pow of Inchaffray, a nine-mile ditch dug to drain the surrounding marshland. Before the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Abbot Maurice carried the relics of Saint Fillan to bless the Scots army. The abbey’s fortunes fell by the 16th century, and after the Reformation it became a secular lordship for the Drummond family. Today a single gable-end wall survives on private land, visible from the road and protected as a scheduled monument. The ruins recall a once-powerful Augustinian house that shaped Strathearn’s history. The mound and walls mark where masses were once said and where Scottish kings and earls once walked. Visitors see the remains of a place that once linked faith, land and power across medieval Scotland.