OS1/10/26/7

List of names as written Various modes of spelling Authorities for spelling Situation Description remarks
Site of HOLYWOOD ABBEY Site of Holywood Abbey Robert Colvin
J.Bell
Gazetteer of Scotland
049 [Situation] About 2¼ miles N. W. by N. {North West by North] of Dumfries. The site of an Abbey partly situated within the graveyard, and partly on the outer side, that on the outside one of the offices of the adjacent farm is built on part of it. The date when founded is uncertain, but is likely to have been sometime betwixt the 11th & 12th century, when the order of the Promonstratensiney Monks to whom it belonged was established.

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Parish of Holywood

[Referring to Holywood Abbey]
The founder is said to be John Lord of Kinconnel, who was of the family of Maxwell, And the year 1154 the date of consecration of its Bells, which are still used in the present church, one of which has an inscription showing that it was consecrated in 1154 by John Wreich. The Abbey stood within the former graveyard, and was built in a cruciform style. A handsome Arch spaned [spanned] the entrance, and a fine Gothic arch was across the the body of the edifice supporting an oaken roof, the upper part of the cross was used as the parochial place of worship so late as the year 1779, and was then taken down to furnish materials for the building of the present edifice. Before the Abbey was built there was a hermitage or cell occupied by a hermit. An Irish recluse of the name of Congal, who seems to have been the founder of this and bequeathed both to the cell, and the Abbey which succeeded it. The name Dercongal signifying the Oakwood of Congal, the name by which the Parish is designated the Charters and Bulls of the 13th Century.
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