Overview of St Serf's Island

An island in Loch Leven, Perth and Kinross, St Serf's is also known as the Inch. Now a noted wildfowl breeding site and wintering ground for migrant geese, the island was occupied by priors of the Augustinian Order until the Reformation. This religious house succeeded an earlier foundation of the Celtic church and came to be noted for its literary output including Prior Andrew Wyntoun's 'Oryginale Cronykil of Scotland' completed at the beginning of the 15th Century. Little remains of the priory except a ruined chapel which survived as a shepherd's bothy after the island was enlarged by the lowering of the level of the loch in 1828-32. Excavations in 1877 revealed two graves thought to be those of the abbot St Ronan and Archbishop Patrick Graham (d.1478).