Lincluden Collegiate Church

Lincluden Collegiate Church survives as a group of red sandstone ruins that record two very different chapters of medieval religious life in Dumfries and Galloway. The site began around 1160 as a nunnery, founded by Uchtred, Lord of Galloway, and his brother — reputedly the first such house in the lordship, and settled at first by Cluniac sisters. That community was swept away late in the fourteenth century when Archibald the Grim, third Earl of Douglas, dismissed the nuns and raised a new church in their place, endowing a college of a provost and twelve canons. The result is an accomplished example of Late Gothic work, attributed to the mason John Morow and enriched with the armorial carvings the Douglas family favoured. Within survives the tomb of Princess Margaret, daughter of Robert III and wife of the fourth Earl of Douglas, who died in 1450. The last Mass was said here on Christmas Day 1585, and the buildings had fallen into decay by about 1700. The poet Robert Burns knew the ruins and set verse here in the 1790s. Today Lincluden is a scheduled monument in the care of Historic Environment Scotland.