Following the defeat of Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633 against Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon ap Cadfan, and the subsequent despoliation of Northumbria, Æbbe's brother Oswald gained control of the kingdom by AD 635, enabling the return of his family.

In c. 635 King Oswald introduced Columban monks to the island of Lindisfarne, opposite his fortress of Bebbanburg, in order to Christianise his mainly pagan peoples.

burh- fort), on the headland at present-day St Abbs, separated from the world by a deep trench and a high palisade.

It is likely that the house was reformed as a community of nuns at some point in the 8th or 9th centuries, as by the formation of the Benedictine priory in AD 1100 there was a thriving cult of St Æbbe at the site.

The son of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, he attacked and deposed King Domnall with the backing of William Rufus of England.

Following his takeover of Lothian and Scotland, in 1098 he confirmed possession of the lands of Coldingham by the monks of Durham, and attended the consecration of the new church to St Mary in 1100.

[2] The crisis of 1378-9 is explained in the Scotichronicon, which has the text of a charter of Robert II, dated at Perth on 25 July 1378 granting Coldingham Priory to another Benedictine house, Dunfermline Abbey, on the stated grounds that English monks were a threat to the king and country and had damaged the neighbourhood.

[3] The Scotichronicon adds that Prior William Claxton had been convicted as a spy, revealing Scottish secrets and illegally transporting money out of the kingdom.

[4] The king's charter apparently followed an attempt by Durham Priory to block the formal appointment of A[dam] of C[rail], [Monk of Dunfermline], to whom Robert II had given possession of its Coldingham cell.

[5] Coldingham Priory had been established by, and had for centuries belonged to, Durham Priory but, at this critical point, English monks were unable to defend a long-established position by an appeal to the pope, since just before Robert II issued his charter, Scotland became subject to a different pope (Clement VII) who was not recognised in England (which followed Urban VI).

[6] In 1379 Clement VII commissioned two Scottish bishops to summon Prior Claxton to answer criminal charges (allegedly of sacrilege, robbery, homicide, rapine and devastation, as well as felonies against King Robert).

On 2 January 1392 Sir Robert de Lawedre of The Bass was a witness to a royal charter to the Priory of Coldingham confirming them in all of their ancient possessions, and signed at Linlithgow.

[12] In April 1544, during the war known as the Rough Wooing, a garrison put in by George Douglas (an ally of the English) was driven out by John Hume.

William Eure then sent George Bowes and the Italian military engineer Archangelo Arcano to set up a fort at Coldingham.

[18] It is an interesting reflection on feudal superiors to note that in a petition to King Charles I dated 4 April 1636 the feuars and tenants still refer to themselves as "the vassals of the Abbacy of Coldingham".

But with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund the site has been rejuvenated: the ruins conserved, footpaths reinstated and a wasteland transformed into a community garden with a monastic theme, concentrating on plants with culinary, medicinal and aromatic properties.

There are also interpretation boards, explaining the hundreds of years of history contained within its walls, while a year-long education programme engaged schools and community groups in many diverse activities relating to the Priory and its conservation.