Culross Abbey, Scotland

Culross Abbey is believed to be built on the location of an ancient religious community headed by St. Serf. The archaeological discovery of early Christian stones, dating to the 8th and 9th Centuries, at the site of the Abbey provides evidence that supports this tradition.  The abbey was dedicated to St. Serf and St. Mary.  St. Serf is thought to have been buried in the earlier church.

In the late 12th Century, a monk named Jocelin of Furness, was asked to write the history of St. Kentigern, or St Mungo, as he has come to be known. He is the Patron Saint of Glasgow. They are one and the same, but medieval documents always like to make it complicated. The story tells us that Mungo’s mother, Teneu, was a Princess, the daughter of King Lleuddun. Princess Teneu becomes pregnant, without her knowledge somehow, but when the King finds out he casts her off, quite literally- she is set adrift in an open boat. However, her boat arrives at Culross and St. Serf takes her in until the child Kentigern, or Mungo, is born. St. Serf then raises the child at Culross Abbey, and once he reaches adulthood, Mungo travels to Glasgow to build a church, where the present Cathedral there now stands. This story has many more twists and turns, and contradicts itself in many places, but I’m sure there is an element of truth somewhere in it. There is a tomb in the crypt at Glasgow Cathedral, which is thought to belong to the saint.

The ruins of the medieval Abbey at Culross today, date from the early 13th Century, when Malcolm, the Earl of Fife, founded a Cistercian Abbey here. The Abbey was first populated by monks from Klnloss Abbey, in Moray. The new Abbey is thought to have been built on the foundations of St. Serf’s early church.