Almshouse confusion

“I have read with interest the recent correspondence about Arbroath abbey and its almshouse,” emails Dr Ishbel Barnes of Guthrie. “For several years I have been writing a history of Arbroath abbey and thought your readers might be interested in some more information about the almshouse.

“There has been confusion about the almshouse, known in the Scots of the time as the almory, for a very long time. The monks themselves didn’t know why it was outside the abbey precincts and not, as was more usual, attached to the abbey itself.

“In November 1464 Richard Guthrie, a former abbot, tried to make sense of it. He gathered together a group of 21 knowledgeable men and asked them 10 questions concerning the foundation of the almshouse, its financial state, how it was governed and its relationship to ly Spitalfelde (Hospitalfield).

“To many of his questions they replied either that they didn’t know or that he should consult the abbey’s own records. They did, however, provide some interesting information for future generations. The Spitalfelde, they said, was a possession of the abbey and the monk who was the almoner received annually two merks from that land. The almshouse was well built and its chapel well adorned.

“The monk Richard Guthrie was an interesting, if perhaps difficult, scholar. In 1449 he ousted the previous abbot Walter Paniter who retired after 40 years ‘old and broken with age.’ Guthrie then resigned as abbot in 1455 and became a professor at St Andrews. However, he returned again as abbot in 1470 and died in 1472, the origins of the separate almshouse still a mystery.”

The St Andrews poster which is to be recreated. See left for details.

“This ‘bee-fly’ was found in our Monifieth garden today,” says a regular reader. “It appears to be a very unusual visitor. We’ve never seen anything like it.”