Let us commence Round 1!!
#SexiestRuins
Round 1, Bracket A!

Holyrood Abbey vs Dryburgh Abbey

Holyrood was an Abbey but also freelanced as a Royal residence and as a Parliamentary palace from time to time. When the Abbey was dissolved the royal residence remained, and still does.
Round 1, Bracket A!

Holyrood Abbey vs Dryburgh Abbey

Dryburgh Abbey, according to local legend, hosts a benevolent spirit known as Fat Lips, who keeps watch over houseless people.
Round 1, Bracket A!

Holyrood Abbey vs Dryburgh Abbey
Round 1, Bracket B!

Abaty Nedd vs Balnakeil Church

After Abaty Nedd was dissolved, the site became an iron foundry. In the 1920's, seven thousand tonnes of slag and waste were removed by hand in order to uncover the ruins.
Round 1, Bracket B!

Abaty Nedd vs Balnakeil Church

Balnakeil may be ruined but the tomb of MacMhurchaidh survives intact: the man killed so many people that he paid a ridiculous amount of money for a tomb that his enemies couldn't destroy. Time couldn't either.
Round 1, Bracket B!

Abaty Nedd vs Balnakeil Church
Round 1, Bracket C!

St Magnus' Egilsay vs Battle Abbey

St Magnus Egilsay has the only surviving round church tower in Scotland! They were very rare in Britain, but much more common in Germany and around the North Sea.
Round 1, Bracket C!

St Magnus' Egilsay vs Battle Abbey

Battle Abbey was built by William the Conqueror on the site of the Battle of Hastings, as penance for killing so many people in the process of conquering England.
Round 1, Bracket C!

St Magnus' Egilsay vs Battle Abbey
Round 1, Bracket D!

Glastonbury Abbey vs Rievaulx Abbey

Glastonbury is, according to popular legend and zero percent fact, the burial place of King Arthur and Queen Guenivere.
Round 1, Bracket D!

Glastonbury Abbey vs Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx was founded on 'wasteland' to encourage the monks to live austerely, but it turned out to be iron-rich land and became, for a while, the wealthiest abbey in England.
Round 1, Bracket D!

Glastonbury Abbey vs Rievaulx Abbey
Round 1, Bracket E!

Movilla Abbey vs Inch Abbey

Movilla was burned by the Irish during the reign of Elizabeth I, to stop the English from using it as a garrison, which is a whole mood. However, the cemetery is still in use today!
Round 1, Bracket E!

Movilla Abbey vs Inch Abbey

When the first monastic house at Inch was built, the site was an island. It is no longer an island.
Round 1, Bracket E!

Movilla Abbey vs Inch Abbey
Round 1, Bracket F!

Bonamargy Friary vs Abaty Cymer

Bonamargy may be ruined, but the burial vault has never successfully been opened and a number of ghosts are purportedly unhappy about that.
Round 1, Bracket F!

Bonamargy Friary vs Abaty Cymer

I was once working on an Elizabethan farmhouse a few miles from Cymer and found a carved angel from one of the abbey's finials built into the house's fireplace, which remains one of my favourite ever finds.
Round 1, Bracket F!

Bonamargy Friary vs Abaty Cymer
Round 1, Bracket G!

Whitby Abbey vs Roche Abbey

Whitby features heavily in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, and like, fair.
Round 1, Bracket G!

Whitby Abbey vs Roche Abbey

Roche Abbey, again with the popular legend and zero percent fact, was reputedly where Robin Hood attended Mass.
Round 1, Bracket G!

Whitby Abbey vs Roche Abbey
Round 1, Bracket H!

Lindisfarne Priory vs Teampull na Trionaid.

Lindisfarne is built from red sandstone, and served as the inspiration for Brian Jacques' Redwall Abbey.
Round 1, Bracket H!

Lindisfarne Priory vs Teampull na Trionaid.

Teampull na Trionaid was, arguably, Scotland's first Gaelic Language University in the 13th century.
Round 1, Bracket H!

Lindisfarne Priory vs Teampull na Trionaid.
Round 1, Bracket J!

Abaty Dinas Basing vs Coventry Cathedral

Two centuries before the Dissolution, a welsh seer predicted the *year* that Dinas Basing would be dissolved, and who would purchase the roof beams.
Round 1, Bracket J!

Abaty Dinas Basing vs Coventry Cathedral

Coventry was, quite infamously, destroyed during WWII, due in part to a tactical decision by the British.
Round 1, Bracket J!

Abaty Dinas Basing vs Coventry Cathedral
Round 1, Bracket K!

Melrose Abbey vs Abaty Tyndyrn

Melrose Abbey is the burial place of the heart of Robert the Bruce. Not the rest of him, just his heart. It was re-discovered and reburied in 1998.
Round 1, Bracket K!

Melrose Abbey vs Abaty Tyndyrn

Tyndyrn's location was chosen in part to be overlooked by a rocky outcrop on the mountain known as the Devil's Pulpit, the idea being that the devil would have to look at God's glory every day.
Round 1, Bracket K!

Melrose Abbey vs Abaty Tyndyrn
Round 1, Bracket L!

Abaty Margam vs Llanthony Priory

When Margam was dissolved, the nave of the abbey was enclosed independently and survives to this day as a parish church.
Round 1, Bracket L!

Abaty Margam vs Llanthony Priory

The ruins of Llanthony Priory were owned for many years by a Regency poet and it was exactly as dramatic as you would expect.
Round 1, Bracket L!

Abaty Margam vs Llanthony Priory
Round 1, Bracket M!

Strata Florida vs Nendrum Monastery

Strata Florida has some of the most intact/surviving medieval floor tiles of any british religious site and just LOOK at them
Round 1, Bracket M!

Strata Florida vs Nendrum Monastery

Nendrum has one of the few surviving medieval sundials, and when it was re-discovered we were able to calculate the height of the walls based on the angle of the sundial.
Round 1, Bracket M!

Strata Florida vs Nendrum Monastery
Round 1, Bracket N!

Leicester's Church Denbigh vs St Andrews' Cathedral

Leicester's Church was started by Elizabeth I's lover boy, but was never actually completed- what is left is all that ever was.
Round 1, Bracket N!

Leicester's Church Denbigh vs St Andrews' Cathedral

Robert the Bruce attended the consecration of St Andrews' Cathedral, during which he rode up the main aisle on his horse.
Round 1, Bracket N!

Leicester's Church Denbigh vs St Andrews' Cathedral
Round 1, Bracket O!

Fortrose Cathedral vs Fountains Abbey

Fortrose lost its use during the Scottish Reformation, but the graveyard remained active for another three centuries because why not.
Round 1, Bracket O!

Fortrose Cathedral vs Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey was founded by a group of monks, including Saint Robert, who were expelled from a monastery in York for inciting a riot.
Round 1, Bracket O!

Fortrose Cathedral vs Fountains Abbey
Round 1, Bracket P!

Elgin Cathedral vs Grey Abbey

Elgin, which has no relation to the marbles, was burned three times in one century during the Wars for Scottish independence.
Round 1, Bracket P!

Elgin Cathedral vs Grey Abbey

Grey Abbey has, among the ruins, an authentic reconstruction of a Cistercian medieval medicinal herb garden.
Round 1, Bracket P!

Elgin Cathedral vs Grey Abbey
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