The Abbey of Holyrood was founded by King David I. In 1128 on the site of a still more ancient and probably Celtic Church, the foundations of which have recently been laid bare during the excavations made by H.M. Office of Works. The Canons regular, who were of the Order of St. Augustine, took up residence there on the completion of the building about 1176. The Abbey was destroyed by the English under the Earl of Hertford in 1543-4, and again after Pinkie in 1547, nothing but the nave being left.
In 1687, the congregation of the Canongate was removed from the Church by order of James VII. that it might become a Chapel for the Order of the Thistle, then established or re-constituted. The parishioners were accommodated in a new church built in the Canongate in 1688, which thereafter became the parish church. In 1768 the roof of the Abbey, which had been repaired in 1758 by
being covered with stone, fell in, and the chapel became the ruin it has since remained.
