Greyfriars, Queen Street, Inverkeithing

Greyfriars, Queen Street, Inverkeithing

A Franciscan Friary was founded in Inverkeithing in the fourteenth century. The Greyfriars, as they were known from the colour of their cowls, were a significant presence in the burgh, with their buildings and gardens stretching from Queen Street south, down to the harbour. Shortly before the Reformation the buildings and lands of the friars were sold to John Swinton of Luscar in 1559, and the friary itself was in ruins as early as August 1560. The only section of the friary to survive aboveground is the hospitium, the guest accommodation that formed the west wing of the friary. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was known as the Rot(h)mell Inn or the Inns, and a tradition had developed associating it with Anabella Drummond, queen consort of Robert III 1390-1406), who regularly resided in Inverkeithing in the 1390s. In the 1930s the Hospitium was subject to an antiquarian reconstruction by J Wilson Paterson (1932-35) and since then it has important community resource, used first as a community centre and library (1930s-1950s) and then from 1974, the upper storey became a town museum until it closed in 2006.

sacredlandscapesoffife

tt27@st-andrews.ac.uk

Site

81

15/06/2021

(1) W. M, Bryce, The Scottish Grey Friars (Edinburgh 1909), i, pp 248-249. (2) A. Becket, ‘Inverkeithing Friary Gardens, Excavation’, in Jennifer Thoms, Discovery Excavation Scotland, New, vol. 20 (2019). (3) William Stephen, History of Inverkeithing and Rosyth (Aberdeen, 1921).

cm x cm x cm

current,56.02972887651148,-3.3983945844374834;

Greyfriars, Queen Street, Inverkeithing

TEXT

Building

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