This abbey is one of the monastic establishments founded in the far
North during the reign of Alexander II. It was originally settled, in
1221, by Farquhard, Earl of Ross, at Edderton, on the Dornoch Frith, and
its first abbot was brought from the priory of Whithorn, in Wigtonshire.
The occupants were therefore of the Premonstratensian Order of Canons
Regular, being the order of the parent house.
The situation originally chosen was found to be too near the turbulent
tribes further north, and, in 1238, leave was granted to Malcolm of Uig,
the second abbot, to transfer the abbey to a new and more peaceful site.
The new locality is about ten miles south-east from the first site, and
had the advantage of being in more fertile soil. Being well within the
domains of the Earl of Ross, the abbey received his protection, and was
also richly endowed by the successive earls.
The connection with Whithorn was kept up, and many of the abbots came
from the parent house. In 1321, Mark, a canon of Whithorn, and son of
Sir Mark Ros, was presented to the abbacy by the Prior of Whithorn, and
not chosen by the monks. He is said to have rebuilt the abbey about
1338, and the rebuilding was completed under the rule of Abbot Donald,
in 1372.
Abbot Finlay M‘Faed was appointed in 1442, and his rule lasted for
forty-four years. He built the cloister, and procured an organ,
tabernacles, chalices, vestments, and other ornaments from Flanders,
with which he enriched the abbey. He died in 1485, and was interred in
St. Michael’s aisle at Fearn, in which his monument was erected, and
where it still survives.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century the commendatorship of the
abbey was held by a mere boy, afterwards destined to become famous in
Scottish history--Patrick Hamilton, the first martyr for Reformation
principles in this country. He was a natural son of the Earl of Arran, a
M.A. of Paris in 1520, and also of St. Andrews. When twenty-six years of
age he was burned as a heretic at the gate of St. Salvator’s College, in
St. Andrews, in 1528.
The buildings of Fearn Abbey having fallen into disrepair, Robert
Cairncross, Bishop of Ross (1539-45) was appointed abbot of Fearn, being
recommended by the king to the Pope, on the understanding that the
bishop, who was wealthy, would be able to restore the abbey. Bishop
Cairncross also held several other appointments, being Provost of
Corstorphine, Abbot of Holyrood, and chaplain to James V. He resigned
the abbacy in 1545, and died soon after. Nicholas Ross, provost of the
Collegiate Church of Tain, held the abbacy, possibly as a secular
charge, seeing that, in 1560, he sat in Parliament, and voted for the
abolition of the Roman Catholic religion.
The last commendator was Walter Ross of Morangy; but he was only
titular, for in 1597 the lands of the abbey were erected into the
temporal Barony of Geanies, and granted by James V. to his favourite,
Sir Patrick Murray.
Some of the church lands were, as usual, feued off to relatives of the
abbots. Abbot Walter Ross procured a grant in his own favour of Morangy
and the mills thereof, which remained with his family for several
generations.
The church continued to be used as the parish place of worship, and in
1742, during divine service, the vaulted roof fell, when about fifty
people were killed.[191]
Of this extensive and richly-furnished abbey there now only remain a
part of the church and the ruins of some structures attached to it.
The church is a simple oblong chamber (Fig. 935), 96 feet long by 26
feet wide internally. Part of it is still used as the parish church, but
the eastern end is partitioned off and set apart as the burial-vault of
the family of Ross of Balnagown. After the fall of the roof last
century, the south wall of the church was to a great extent rebuilt, a
new roof put on, and the interior plastered. The eastern portion, with
the exception of the building up of some of the windows and the
reconstruction of the gable, has been left intact. The chapels, or
“aisles,” attached to the church have been erected against the original
walls, as is evident from the remains of windows still visible, which
are built up.
The features of the church are extremely simple (Fig. 936). The windows
are all tall lancets. In the east gable there are four of these all of
equal height, and the walls have been pierced with similar lights, in
pairs, between all the buttresses round the walls. Some of these remain
in the north wall (see Fig. 936), and in the south wall (which has been
remodelled and partly rebuilt, with large windows inserted) some
portions of the old lancets can yet be traced.
[Illustration: FIG. 935.--Fearn Abbey. Plan.]
There is nothing very distinctive of any particular period in the
architecture, but the features correspond fairly well with the date
assigned to the rebuilding of the abbey by the abbots Mark and Donald
during the fourteenth century. The lanceolate form of the windows seems
at first sight to indicate an earlier period, but, on careful
inspection, it will be observed that there is no hood moulding, a
feature almost universally used in first pointed work. Besides, the
lancet form of window was employed in the north even as late as the
sixteenth century, as in the west front of Beauly Priory, built by
Bishop Reid about 1550. An ambry, piscina, and sedilia are still
preserved in the south wall of the chancel.