She Carried His Heart for 22 Years. Then Built Scotland’s Most Romantic Abbey.

For 22 years, a woman walked through the courts of medieval Scotland carrying a silver casket wherever she went. She placed it beside her at the table. She kept it close when she slept. When she died, in the bitter January cold of 1290, it was buried in her arms.

Inside that casket was her husband’s heart.

Her name was Devorgilla of Galloway. And the abbey she built in his honour still stands — in red sandstone ruins — in the quiet village of New Abbey, seven miles south of Dumfries.

Who Was Devorgilla of Galloway?

Born around 1214, Devorgilla was one of the most powerful women in 13th-century Scotland. Her father was Alan of Galloway, one of the great lords of the realm. Through her mother, she carried royal blood.

She married John de Balliol, an Anglo-Norman nobleman with estates across Scotland, England, and Normandy. By all accounts, it was a genuine partnership — not a political arrangement, but a real companionship between equals.

Together they were enormously wealthy. And together they used that wealth generously.

The Death That Changed Everything

John de Balliol died in 1268. Devorgilla was in her mid-fifties — vigorous, powerful, with decades of life still ahead of her.

She could have remarried. Many widows of her rank did. Instead, she had his heart embalmed and placed in a silver casket.

She is said to have called it her sweet, silent companion. It sat at the table during meals. It travelled with her across Scotland and England. For more than two decades, John de Balliol never left her side.

The Abbey She Built

Four years after John’s death, in 1273, Devorgilla founded a Cistercian monastery on the banks of the River Nith. She brought monks from Dundrennan Abbey, endowed the community richly, and gave them one permanent charge: to pray for John’s soul every single day.

The monks came to call the place Dulce Cor — Sweet Heart in Latin. And the name, quietly and naturally, became the abbey’s own.

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What Else She Left Behind

Sweetheart Abbey was not Devorgilla’s only enduring gift to the world.

At Oxford, she completed the founding of Balliol College — one of the oldest colleges in the university. John had earlier pledged support for poor scholars as an act of penance, but died before formalising the arrangement. Devorgilla honoured the pledge, gave the college its formal constitution, and secured its future. Balliol College still thrives today.

She also funded the construction of the first stone bridge over the River Nith at Dumfries. Known as Devorgilla’s Bridge, it still carries pedestrians across the water — more than 700 years after she ordered it built.

The Ruin That Still Stands

Sweetheart Abbey today is managed by Historic Environment Scotland. The site sits in the small village of New Abbey, about seven miles south of Dumfries town centre, and is easily reached by car.

What you find inside is extraordinary. The nave walls stand to their original height — tall, honey-red sandstone arches framing nothing but open Scottish sky. The central tower is largely intact. In places, carved stonework has survived untouched for seven centuries.

On a grey afternoon, when the clouds move quickly overhead and the light shifts across the sandstone, it rivals Scotland’s most atmospheric castle ruins for sheer emotional weight.

Buried Where She Prayed

When Devorgilla died in January 1290, she was buried before the high altar of the abbey she had built and loved.

The silver casket with John’s heart was placed in her arms.

The two of them have lain there ever since.

Scotland has no shortage of dramatic stories — sieges and betrayals, clans and battles fought across impossible terrain. But Sweetheart Abbey asks something quieter of you. It asks you to imagine a woman who outlived her husband by more than two decades and found a way, every single day, to carry his memory with her.

If you are travelling through Scotland and want to feel something that cannot be found on any tourist route, drive south of Dumfries, park in the village of New Abbey, and walk through the gate into what remains of Dulce Cor.

Take a moment. Look up at the red sandstone arches.

Some places make the past feel very close.