Beauly Priory

Beauly Priory stands at the north end of Beauly village, twelve miles west of Inverness on the A862 toward Muir of Ord. The priory was founded around 1230 by Sir John Bisset for the Valliscaulian order, one of only three Valliscaulian houses ever established in Scotland, alongside Pluscarden and Ardchattan. The order was a strict early-13th-century French reform of the Benedictines, founded at Val-des-Choux in Burgundy; the architectural register at Beauly is correspondingly sober, with the continental Cistercian-and-Carthusian influence visible in the proportions.

What survives is the church, roofless but with substantial wall standing. The south wall, the tower base and the east end are the most complete, and the building’s distinctive triangular windows, unusual for medieval Scottish religious architecture, are part of why the priory still appears in architectural reference books. Several monumental tombs survive inside, including the recumbent effigy of Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail. The priory was suppressed at the Reformation in 1573 and the buildings decayed across the centuries that followed.

Beauly takes its name from the medieval French beau lieu, “beautiful place”, said to have been Mary Queen of Scots’ description on her 1564 visit. The village itself is a working market town with cafés, the long-standing Campbell’s of Beauly tweed-and-tartan outfitter, and the square that’s a natural Highland touring lay-by.

Free, unstaffed and open at any reasonable time. Operated by Historic Environment Scotland.