Discover Fife’s spiritual home of whisky at Lindores Abbey – The Past

The first year of the University of St Andrews’ Monastic Archaeology Field School has produced evidence of medieval buildings and pottery at Lindores Abbey, near Newburgh in Fife.

Lindores Abbey, a 12th-century foundation of the Tironensian Order, may be the site of the first recorded production of whisky in Scotland, as a 1494 Exchequer Roll documents a payment from James IV to the abbey for ‘Aqua Vitae’. Previous work at the site included valuation work by Rebecca Shaw in 2016 and the discovery of a medieval distillery in 2018. Now the University of St Andrews has embarked on a project to reveal more of the abbey’s archaeology.

During this first year of the new field school, archaeologists and 15 students from the St Andrews Summer Study opened four trenches to answer specific questions about the layout of the abbey and its grounds. These revealed evidence of demolished buildings and at least one wooden structure to the east of the abbey church and cloister. The excavations confirmed that a standing wall line previously identified as part of the southern abbey site line is in fact of later date, representing part of a post-monastic orchard boundary.

Along with evidence of the abbey’s original layout, the team discovered a wealth of ceramic material on the site. These finds include sherds of medieval Scottish Redwares and White Gritty Wares dating from the 12th to the 15th centuries, as well as pieces of imported German (Rhenish) stoneware from the 14th to the 15th centuries, and French or Low Countries Highly Decorated wares from the 13th to the 14th centuries. A single fragment of a ceramic bird whistle provided a particularly fine discovery, with a likely post-monastic provenance from France or southern England. Most of the pottery was found in deeply stratified deposits in the southern part of the complex, along with animal bones of a similar nature to finds from Shaw’s 2016 assessment.

This first season has proven to be a valuable introduction to the archaeology of the site for the project team and has provided an ideal training ground for the team of Summer Study students. The initiative will continue in the coming years with new objectives to investigate the use and management of water within the Abbey site and surrounding area, much of which lies within an area planned by Historic Environment Scotland.

The project team would like to thank Drew and Helen Mackenzie Smith and their team at Lindores Abbey Distillery for their support and interest.

Text: courtesy of Derek Hall, Professor Alison Beach (University of St Andrews), Professor Darlene L Brooks Hedstrom (Brandeis University), Calum Muir and Dr Kimm Curran (University of St Andrews) / Image: University of St Andrews Monastic Archaeology Field School