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Beauly Priory

Beauly, Inverness-shire
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Explore the ruined church of a little-known order of monks in a wooded, riverside location.

Beauly Priory is one of three priories founded in Scotland in about 1230 for monks of the Valliscaulian order. The Valliscaulians came from Val-des-Choux (‘Valley of the Cabbages’) near Dijon in France, and adhered to strict ideals of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Beauly, meaning ‘beautiful place’, must have seemed to the monks a wonderful location in which to devote themselves to worship.

Only the abbey church still stands today, housing some fine funerary monuments.

Exterior view of Beauly Priory showing the tall, gabled west end wall of the roofless stone church, with three narrow arched window openings above a central arched doorway. A gravel path leads directly to the entrance through a grassy churchyard containing several upright and flat gravestones. Mature trees frame the scene, with branches arching over the foreground.
Exterior view of a partially collapsed stone wall at Beauly Priory. The structure is built from mixed red‑brown sandstone and includes a tall, jagged gable wall with a steep diagonal line of surviving masonry. Below the gable is a pointed arched doorway leading into an interior space. The adjoining wall contains a small rectangular window opening and part of a larger arched opening. The building stands on a lawn of green grass under a lightly overcast sky.
Interior of the roofless church at Beauly Priory, showing long sandstone walls lined with tall pointed arch window openings. The stone floor is paved with large rectangular slabs, some uneven or partially broken. The far gabled end wall contains several narrow arched openings above a central doorway, with greenery visible outside. Mature trees rise behind the wall, and natural light fills the open space.

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