Clova Monastery
Clova Monastery (also called Cloveth) was a medieval Culdee monastery in Kildrummy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Founding Clova was founded in the late sixth century by the pre-Columban missionary known to history as Saint Moluag, who was sent from the Bangor monastery in Ulster to the Picts in Scotland in 562, a year before Iona was established by Columba. Site Archaeological work at the site has revealed a prehistoric settlement with earth houses on the left bank of the Little Mill Burn, a tributary of the burn of Mossat, just east of Little Mill Smiddy, about a half mile south of Clova House (an eighteenth-century building), and a mile southwest of Lumsden. Near the site, the foundations of a small church, called St. Luke's by the local population, can still be traced, near which is a well called Sammiluak's. Some maintain its name is homophonous with St. Molaug's, others with St. Luke's. Four stone crosses excavated in 1875, in the old churchyard are on display at Clova House and “may well be relics of the early Celtic monastery.” They were discovered in an upright position beneath the surface of the earth, where they had sunk over time. Traces of interment were noticeable.