Jedburgh Abbey is one of the most elegant examples of 12th-century architecture in Scotland. It was founded by King David I, both as an act of piety and to assert his claim to the Borders.The abbey was repeatedly ravaged over centuries of border warfare, and almost abandoned after the Reformation. But thanks to conservation work sponsored by the 9th Marquis of Lothian and excavations in the 1930s and 1980s, the magnificent abbey church can be seen in context as the heart of a medieval Augustinian abbey.