The 6th century Irish missionary St Mirin is said to have raised a church on a small plot of ground, near the river in where the town of Paisley now stands, known as St Mirin’s Croft Prior. After his death, the church became an important pilgrimage site for the growing Celtic Church. Following the granting of the land upon which the church stood to Walter FitzAlan by David I, King of Scots, the Anglo-Norman knight, and High Steward to Kings David, Malcolm IV and William I, granted the site to the Cluniac Order to found a priory there.

FitzAlan signed a charter at Fotheringay, in Northamptonshire, in 1163 gifting the lands to the Cluniacs, and 13 monks travelled from their priory in Much Wenlock in Shropshire to establish the priory on the site of the old Celtic church. The new church was dedicated to St Mary, St James, St Mirin and St Milburga and, in 1245, it was raised to the status of an Abbey, making its monks answerable only to the pope in Rome.

The abbey was virtually destroyed by the invading English army in 1307 during the Wars of Scottish Independence and was substantially rebuilt in the century that followed. Due to the patronage of successive Scottish monarchs and local aristocrats and its extensive links to Europe, the Abbey became one of the wealthiest and influential ecclesiastical institutions in the country.

Legend asserts that Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce and wife of Walter Stewart, sixth High Steward of Scotland, was taken to the abbey for medical care in 1316 having fallen from her horse nearby while heavily pregnant. The future Robert II was delivered by caesarean section before his mother sadly died and buried in the Abbey. As a consequence of the royal birth, the Abbey has been called by historians the “Cradle of the Royal House of Stewart”. Princess Marjorie’s tomb was lost to history, and a replacement was imaginatively fashioned in the 19th century from some architectural fragments and an unknown effigy found in the Abbey and its grounds.

Her son’s wives were also buried in the Abbey, as were all six High Stewards of Scotland, and in 1406 her grandson King Robert III was laid to rest next to the church’s high altar. His burial place was also lost to history and, following her visit to the Abbey in 1888, Queen Victoria ordered a replacement memorial for her 14 times great grandfather. Created by the Scottish sculptor John Hutchison, the handsome carved slab of Peterhead granite resting on a block of Sicilian marble was installed in 1890.

The building’s central tower collapsed in the mid-16th century, reducing to rubble significant parts of the building. After the Reformation of 1560, the monastery was disbanded, its buildings handed over to the Hamilton family and the much-reduced walled-off nave became the parish church of Paisley. The transepts and choir were to remain in ruins until a series of restoration projects from the late 18th century to the late 20th century restored the grand Gothic building in stages.

Substantial works were first carried out on the nave from 1788-89 but it would be over half a century later, in 1859-62 before the restoration continued here and in the transepts when the architect James Salmon oversaw this phase. From 1888-1907, the noted Scottish architect Robert Rowand Anderson continued the reconstruction of the transepts and the lower portion of the central tower and his ambitious plans for the buildings were continued by the similarly celebrated architect Peter MacGregor Chalmers., who also worked on the choir, added the vestry and began the reconstruction of the Abbey cloister from 1912-22. He was succeeded by another feted Scottish architect, Sir Robert Lorimer who worked on the choir and the upper part of the tower from 1922-28. Works in the early 1980s saw the removal of the 18th century plaster ceiling in the nave and its replacement with a grand open timber roof with tie beams.

The building is graced with some incredible furnishings and fixtures. The pulpit, of 1904, was designed by the architect Thomas Graham Abercombie, the lectern by Abercrombie’s protégé John Craig Barr, the finely carved stone communion table and delicate wooden choir stalls were designed by Robert Lorimer, but created for him by the sculptor Pilkington Jackson and by the Glasgow firm of woodcarvers William and Alexander Clow. Lorimer also designed the elaborate replacement stone ceiling bosses and vaulting, which was carved by stonemason James A Young and his team in 1926. There are also many fine memorials and grave markers, in addition to the royal ones described above, located throughout the building, and the monumental early medieval Barochan Cross, one of only six known crosses surviving from the ancient Kingdom of Strathclyde, was moved into the building in 1981 for safe-keeping.

Paisley Abbey houses a very fine pipe organ manufactured by the Parisian organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Collin in 1872, one of only six such instruments found in the British Isles. It has been rebuilt, restored and extended on four occasions, most recently in 2009 by the firm of Harrison & Harrison. The church also possesses a stunning collection of stained glass windows, dating from the 19th to 20th century, by a variety of well-known artists and workshops including Daniel Cottier & Co, Stephen Adam, Edward Burne-Jones, Douglas Strachan, John Kenneth Clark, and John Duncan. In a side room visitors today can also view historic fragments from the building that have been rediscovered over the years, including a selections of finds made during archaeological excavations in the medieval drain running from the Abbey to the nearby White Cart Water. These include medieval chamber pots, cloth seals and potentially the oldest example of polyphonic music to survive in Scotland, inscribed on a slate and lost by a monk down the sewer in the 15th century!

A small historic graveyard sits today between the building and the White Cart Water and no visit to the site would be complete without spotting the superbly carved ‘Alien’ gargoyle, inspired by the terrifying creature from the eponymous 1979 film. It was created in 1991 by stonemason David Lindsay as part of a restoration project to replace twelve crumbling gargoyles around the Abbey’s roofline. The fearsome stone xenomorph is located on the south-western side of the building, forever silently gazing down at passers-by going about their day-to-day business below.