Description of the attraction
Holyrood Abbey (Abbey of the Holy Cross) was founded in 1128 by King David I of Scotland and belonged to Augustinian monks. The abbey played an important role not only in the religious but also in the political life of Scotland. Meetings of the nobility and higher clergy were held here, Scottish kings were crowned and married here. Kings often stayed in the abbey located near Edinburgh Castle, preferring to live here, and not in the castle itself, and already at the end of the 15th century there were separate royal apartments in the abbey, and at the beginning of the 16th century, King James IV was building a palace adjacent to the abbey - Holyrood House.
In the middle of the 16th century, the English troops, who seized the abbey, ravaged it - the building lost its lead roof, the bells were removed, and valuables were looted. The Scottish Reformation soon began and the abbey was almost completely destroyed. In 1686, King James VII founded a Jesuit college at Holyrood, and the following year, the abbey became Catholic. The church was rebuilt anew and a chapel of the Most Ancient and Noble Order of the Thistle appeared in it, decorated with carved chairs according to the number of knights of the order. However, in 1688, a crowd of rebels broke into the church, destroying both the church and the chapel and desecrating the ancient royal burials. (The Order of the Thistle did not have its own chapel until 1911 at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh.)
The poorly repaired roof collapsed during a hurricane in 1768, and since then the abbey has remained in the state in which we can see it today - picturesque ruins, impressive remnants of its former greatness. Over the course of these 250 years, projects for the restoration and restoration of the abbey have appeared more than once, but none of them have been implemented.
