Loch Ness Monster Explained

Chapter 17c - MY MONSTER - Rescuing The Abbey

My small heritage exhibition at the Abbey demonstrated that there was a tourism market, but how to develop the Abbey was more problematical than it first seemed. I also found that one or two of the monks were none too pleased to find their domain infiltrated by this monster hunter from Drumnadrochit. Notably there was stubborn resistance from the Bursar, Fr Edward Delapine, but this was more than compensated for by the enthusiasm of Br Paul Bonnici.

The monks were facing three crises. My brief was to deal with crisis 1, but perhaps by so doing, crises 2 & 3 could also be alleviated.

1. Financial Crisis - the school had been the only source of income

2. Outreach Crisis - the monks had lost their main outreach to the world at large - the school

3. Crisis of Numbers - the monastic community had been dwindling in numbers for some time

Superficially the Abbey is a collection of primarily nineteenth century buildings at the head of Loch Ness. In the top image, the Caledonian Canal and the River Oich can be seen to the right of the Abbey grounds and the mouth of the River Tarff is just visible at bottom left of the picture.

Starting from the left, some outbuildings can be seen which were mainly used for storage. Next comes the Church, with its long pitched roof set into a larger flat roof. Attached to the left of the main body of the church are the older chapels of St Andrew and the Blessed Sacrament. Moving right we now come to the main buildings which surround a square courtyard and cloister which was once the barrack square of the original Fort Augustus. The tall central building is the monastic bell tower. The furthest building on the square is the hospice mentioned previously and the building with the tower on the right of the cloisters is the main college wing. In the middle distance the cricket pavilion can be seen.

I offered each of the monks the opportunity to come and talk to me about their own aspirations for the Abbey and its buildings and a number of views came across very clearly:

1. They did not want a peep show into their lives.

2. There was a desire to have a small exhibit on monasticism.

3. They wanted outreach to the world at large and would participate in the project.

4. They needed to cover the £20,000 per annum maintenance costs of the buildings.

5. They wanted to put something back into the local community and provide employment.

6. The Bursar had in mind that there could be a tea room in a corner of the grounds away from the Abbey in a building capable of seating just twenty people.

7. The Abbot felt that the exhibition's subject matter should be very broad in order to encourage as many people as possible to visit and interact with the monastic community. He also wanted the original fort to be incorporated within the storyline.

8. All of the monks wanted to ensure that their religious services would not be disrupted in the church and that the monastic enclosure should not be impinged upon. The enclosure was the monastery building, refectory, half of the cloisters, the calefactory and the monastic gardens.

Much of the work involved burning the midnight oil at the Abbey and I worked from the old headmaster's office in a rather unpleasant late nineteen-fifties building. It was actually somewhat spooky working away in the empty school buildings.

In addition Fr Edward, the Bursar, was a rather unnerving character who had a habit of moving around the buildings absolutely silently. I remember one occasion when I was photocopying the business plan very late at night. I had my back to the office door which I had left ajar. Suddenly I became aware of breathing behind me and turned around. There, in mid-air was this disembodied skull. I think I must have hit the ceiling, such was the fright I got.