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THE COUNTY OF
ROXBURGH
VOLUME I
[picture inserted]
Royal Commisssion
on the Ancient Monuments
of Scotland |
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Footnotes have been added in brackets as unable to add superscript. |
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No. 503 KELSO PARISH No. 504
trees have now been felled, and the area can be seen
to be covered with more or less superficial workings
- curving adits leading to larger or smaller pits -
which seem to have discharged downhill towards
Jedburgh. About 550 yds. to the NNE., in Quarry
Plantation (673210), there is a single deep pit with
considerable mounds of debris; it is entered from
the SW; or downhill side, but instead of discharging
in this direction, which is towards Jedburgh, the
hollowed extraction-road curves round outside the
pit to N. and NE. and rises gradually to ground level
at the upper end of the site.
671205, 673210 N xix (unnoted, "Old Quarry")
4 September 1950.
(iii) Hundalee Quarry is a single cup-shaped
hollow sunk into the face of the hill 270 yds. nearly
due W. of Hundalee Farm, in Quarry Plantation,
now felled. The pit is about 30 ft. deep at the face,
and great piles of debris have accumulated on the
downhill (E.) side, through which the stone was
extracted.
638186 N xix (unnoted). 4 September 1950
(iv) The old quarry at Tudhope has been filled
up. It was situated SW of the house.
640206 (approx.) N xix (unnoted). 4 September 1950
503. Ditch, Duke's Covert. This ditch runs
NW. from a patch of swampy ground rather less than
200 yds. NE. of Lantoncraigs Fort (No. 456) to a
point just inside Duke's Covert, where it is lost
among modern drains. Its surviving length is thus
about 180 yds. It may either represent a linear
earthwork of which the bank has been destroyed, or
less probably a length of old tract.
631209-629210 N xix (unnoted). 13 September 1947.
KELSO PARISH
CHURCHES, CASTLES, ETC.
504. Kelso Abbey. By 1128 a convent of re-
formed Benedictines had left their earlier home at
Selkirk, to which they had come about 1119(1)
from their mother-house of Tiron in France, and migrated,
under the leadership of Herbert, the third abbot (2),
to a new abbey at Kelso, founded and endowed by
David I. The earlier site, which David had also
provided, had proved unsuitable. This new abbey,
dedicated both to the Blessed Virgin and to St.
John, rose on level haugh-land on the left bank of
Tweed, facing the burgh of Roxburgh (No. 521) and
the royal castle that was known as Marchmount
(No. 905). It was destined to become one of the
largest and the second wealthiest of the religious
houses in Scotland. But its situation, so close to the
troubled Border, laid it open to attack throughout
almost its whole existence. (3) For a time after the
Wars of Independence it had even to be abandoned;(4)
while in the period preceding the Reformation it was
continuously harried by the English. Destroyed by
Dacre in 1522 and by the Duke of Norfolk twenty
years later, it was finally stormed and captured in 1545
by Hertford, who resolved "to rase and deface this
house of Kelso so as the enemye shal have lytell
commoditie of the same"(5). What survived was
given to the flames two years later. Thereafter, the
Commendator, James Stewart, effected some repairs;(6)
but it was reported in 1587 that "the haill monkis of
the monasterie of the abbey of Kelso ar deciessit"(7)
and in 1594 the temporality of the abbey was in-
alien ably annexed to the Crown.(8)
THE BUILDINGS. Little more is left of the abbey
buildings that the W. end of the great church, which
was founded on 3 May 1128,(9) and dedicated by David
de Bernham, bishop of St Andrews, on 27 March
1243. When on the point of death in 1253 this bishop
chose to be buried here and not in his own cathedral.
In view of the condition of the fabric, it is particularly
fortunate that a description of the Abbey as it stood
in 1517, before the major destructions had taken place,
is preserved in the Vatican archives. This is con-
tained in a Latin document published as early as
1864(10) which, however, escaped notice until about
thirty year ago(11) because it was omitted from the
index of the work in which it appeared. The docu-
ment in question is a deposition made before a papal
notary by a certain John Duncan, a cleric of Glasgow
diocese, and contains the following passages a transla-
tion of which deserves to be quoted in full.
"The church or monastery of Calco took its name
from the small town of that name by which it stands.
Its dedication is to St. Mary. . . . It is in the diocese
of St. Andrews, but is wholly exempt from any juris-
diction of the archbishop and is directly subject to the
Apostolic See. . . .It lies on the bank of a certain
stream which is called in their language the Tweed
(Tuid sive Tueda) and which today divides Scotland from the English. . . .
"The monastery itself is double, for not only is it
conventual, having a convent of monks, but it is also
a ministry; for it possesses a wide parish with the
accompanying cure of souls which the Abbot is
accustomed to exercise through a secular presbyter-
1. The year is given as 1109 in the Melrose Chronicle
2. A. Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters, 275
3. Calendar of Papal Registers, Papal Letters, ix, 452; A.D. 1444
4. Liber de Calchou, i, 24.
5. State Papers, Henry VIII, v, pt. iv, 515.
6. Hist. MSS.Com., Milne Home, Wedderburn Castle, 250
7. Acts Parl. Scot., iii, 454
8. Ibid., iv, 62.
9. Melrose Chronicle, s.a.
10. Theiner, Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum historiam illustrantia (Rome, 1864), 527 f.
11. P.B.N.C., xxiv (1919-22), 301 ff.
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No. 504. KELSO PARISH. No. 504
vicar, removable at his pleasure. The Abbot exer-
cises episcopal jurisdiction over his parishioners himself.
"The church, in size and shape, resembles that
of St . Augustine de Urbe, except that at each end
it has two high chapels (1) on each side, like wings,
which give the church the likeness of a double cross.
It's fabric is of squared grey stone, and it is very old
indeed (vetusta admodum et annosa). It has three
doorways, one towards the west, in the fore-part (in
anteriore parte), and the other two at the sides. It is
divided into three naves by a double row of columns.
The entire roof of the church is wooden, and its outer
covering is of leaden sheets. The ground within is
partly paved with stone and partly floored with bare
earth. It has two towers, one at the first entrance to
the church, the other in the inner part at the choir;
both are square in plan and are crowned by pyramidal
roofs like the tower of the Basilica of St. Peter. The
first contains many sweet-sounding bells, the other,
at the choir, is empty on account of decay and age.
The church is divided by a transverse wall into
two parts; the outer part is open to all, especially
parishioners both women and men, who there hear
masses and receive all sacraments from their parochial
vicar. The other part, the back of the church,
takes only monks who chant and celebrate the
Divine Office. Laymen do not go in except at the
time of Divine Service, and then only men; but
on some of the more solemn festivals of the year
women are also admitted. In this furthest-back part,
at the head of the church, there is an old wooden
choir.
"The high altar is at the head of the choir, facing
east, and on this several choral masses are cele-
brated daily, one for the founder and the other
according to the current feast or holiday. There are
besides, in the whole church, twelve or thirteen altars
on which several masses are said daily, both by
monks and by secular chaplains. In the middle of
the church, on the wall which divides the monks
from the parishioners, there is a platform of wood;
here stands the altar of the Holy Rood, on which the
Body of Christ is reserved and assiduously wor-
shipped, and there is the great worship and devotion
of the parishioners. On the same platform there is
also an organ of tin. The sacristy is on the right-
hand side of the choir; in it are kept a silver cross,
many chalices and vessels of silver, and other suffi-
cliently precious ornaments belonging to the altar
and the priests, as well as the mitre and pastoral staff.
"The cemetery is on the north, large and square,
and enclosed with a low wall to keep out beasts. It
is joined to the church. The cloister, or home of the
monks is on the south and is also joined to the
church; it is spacious and square in shape, and is
partly covered with lead and partly unroofed through
the fury and impiety of enemies. In the cloister
there is, on the one side, the chapter house and the
dormitory and on the other two refectories, a greater
and lesser. The cloister has a wide court round which
are many houses and lodgings; there are also guest-
quarters common to both English and Scots.
There are granaries and other places where merchants and
the neighbours store their corn, wares and goods and
keep them safe from enemies.. There is also an
orchard and a beautiful garden.
"In the cloister there is usually the Abbot, the
Prior and the Superior; and in time of peace thirty-
six or forty professed monks reside there. The town
by which the monastery stands is called Calco, and has
been said, or rather, in their common tongue, Chelso;
it contains not more than sixty dwellings and is
subject to the Abbot in respect of both temporal and
spiritual jurisdiction. Nearly all the inhabitants are
husbandmen and cultivators of the fields of the mon-
astery, and none of them pays tithe or dues; on
the contrary they receive payment from the Abbot,
that they may be able to withstand and repel from
the monastery the continual attacks of enemies.
"The Abbey has, in addition, three or four other
hamlets under it from which it receives tithes. It
also holds the patronage of many parish churches
from the vicars of which it receives part of the fruits.
The Abbots house is separate from that of the
monks, but their table is in common.
"It's value is somewhat uncertain because of the
continual raids and pillaging of enemies and robbers,
but by common opinion it is estimated at 1,500
ducats or thereabouts : and its fruits consist in church
dues, tithes, provisions and rentals."
By the late 17th century, to judge from the illustra-
tigons in Slezer's Theatrum Scotiae, little more was
left of the church than at present. Within the parts
then surviving a parish church was instituted in
1649, (2) it's E. Wall being built in alinement with the
E. piers of the W. crossing while the vestry extended
E. Into what had been the nave. Traces of this
intrusion remained until the middle of the last
century, but had been swept away before H.M. Office
of Works became custodian of the fabric in 1919.
The abbey church, as well as the cloister on its S.
side must have been set out on the first entry of the
convent to the site; this inference is corroborated
by Fordun, who relates that Earl Henry (died 1152)
"in monasterio de Kalco secus Roxburgum sepultus
est, quod pater ejus a fundamentis costruendo. . . .
ditaverat",(3) and some sixty years later, when the W.
end of the church came to be built, no material
departure was made from the original Norman design
although the architectural details were fashioned in
the Transitional style then current. Thus we find
that the bold projecting base-course on the W. end
of the church is identical in section with the one in
1. This refers to the transepts. Duncan's use of the comparative "eminemtiores" hardly does justice to their height
2. The Church of St. James in the burg of Roxburgh (q.v., p. 253) still functioned in that year, but had only six communicants
3. Scotichronicon, v, cap. Xliii
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No. 504 Kelso Parish No. 504
the W. end of Jedburgh, built in Transitional style,
and almost identical with that on the E. end of
Dryburgh, which must be subsequent to 1150.
The abbey buildings (Fig. 297) are of sandstone,
Probably from Sprouston Quarry (No. 975), situated
No. 504 Kelso Parish No. 504
the W. end of Jedburgh, built in Transitional style,
and almost identical with that on the E. end of
Dryburgh, which must be subsequent to 1150.
The abbey buildings (Fig. 297) are of sandstone,
Probably from Sprouston Quarry (No. 975), situated
[Floor plan of Abbey inserted here]
Fig. 297. Kelso Abbey (No. 504).
on the opposite bank of the Tweed and 2 1/2 miles
ENE. of Kelso. The stone, pale grey to buff or
yellow in colour when freshly broken, is rich in
disseminated flakes of mica and consequently the
carved details are considerably decayed.
THE CHURCH : Exterior. In Scotland the Tiron-
ensians favoured an extended front for their larger
churches, and the one at Kelso had not only transepts
in the usual position but also others at the W. end
flanking a great Galilee porch-these W. divisions
having also a tower above their crossing and together
making a facade of quite unusual grandeur. That
this W. end was based upon that of Ely Cathedral
has often been said, but the suggestion has little to
support it. At Ely, in the first instance a Benedictine
church, the Galilee is an addition, although it prob-
ably occupied the site of an earlier porch, while that
of Kelso was an original provision. There is, more-
over, good reason for believing that Kelso is the
earlier structure of the two. Indeed, apart from their
having a common plan for their W. ends and showing
a similar profusion of nailhead ornament, there is
little correspondence between the two buildings,
and any prototype for Kelso is probably to be sought
in Rhenish Romanesque work.
The nave and its aisles are represented only by
two bays of the S. arcade, and the extent of the nave
is uncertain, excavation by H.M. Office of Works in
1933 having yielded no definite evidence of the
position of the E. transepts. The form of the E.
ending is likewise unknown, but in view of the early
date of the monks' entry to the site, and of the fact
that the seniors at least of the convent must once
have been inmates of Tiron and therefore conversant
with contemporary French design, it is most likely
that the E. end was apsidal in the first instance, while
the E. transepts may each have had an apsidiole.
Both on plan and in elevation the design of this
church is of exceptional merit, yet most of the
architectural detail is both coarse and uninspired in
comparison with the contemporary work at Jedburgh.
Although its SW. angle is missing, the front of the
Galilee (Fig.299) still forms a dignified composition
in the Transitional style-its great W. portal ad-
vancing in the centre from between broad buttresses
of slight projection with engaged shafts rising within
their re-entrant angles. The doorway itself, now
represented only by its N. side, is built in recessed
orders. On the remaining jamb there have been five
nook-shafts, traceable from their moulded bases and
their capitals, the latter carved with water-leaf
foliage. The arch-head, enclosed within a hood-
mould, has been built in six orders, all of them
variously enriched, the motifs including the nail-head,
the dog-tooth, banded rolls, the cable, the beak-head,
and the chevron. Above it runs a sloping cope rising
from a chip-carved band, which returns and runs
along the surviving halfit on which there is a single
bay of interlaced arcading lower down. Over the
portal there are the remains of a single lofty round-
arched window built in two orders, the outer order
of the jambs being provided with a nook-shaft while
that of the arch bears a bold chevron ornament.
On either side of the window there have been two
bays of attenuated interlaced arcading with long
banded shafts. Over these and the window run two
decorated courses, the upper one enriched with a
nebuly and the lower one with a flattened double
cone, confined between two string-courses. The
upper part of the gable shows one side of a vesica-
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No. 504 Kelso Parish
shaped light, and a string-course enriched with
dog-tooth ornament which starts from the capitals
of the angle-shafts to return upwards round the
window. The gable now rises only a few courses
above this window, but the survivor of the two
flanking buttresses, which contains a staircase, rises
higher and is developed to an octagon on plan like the
corresponding buttresses at Jedburgh. From the
staircase an access leads out to a walk on the inner
thickness of the gable, the gable-head having been
carried up on a thin wall on the outer plane.
The sides of the Galilee and the W. sides of the
transepts show a similar treatment. Their height
from ground to wall-head is divided into four storeys
by string-courses, while a shallow buttress at each
end, and another at the centre of each wall, makes a
horizontal division two bays wide. The lowest storey
contains an interlaced arcade. All the shafts of this
arcade are missing, but their scalloped capitals and
spreading moulded bases still remain together with
the arches, the latter wrought with a bold quirked
edge-roll. The two storeys above the arcade have a
single window in each bay, built in two orders, the
outer one supported on nook-shafts with capitals
either scalloped or carved with rudimentary foliage.
The clearstorey windows are smaller than those
below and although they are also built in two orders
they were not intended to have nook-shafts. The
wall-head course above them is borne on small
moulded corbels now very much decayed. The only
alterations traceable, apart from some relatively
modern repairs, are two 17th-century doorways
opened respectively in the N. wall of the Galilee and
in the W. wall of the S. transept, both of which have
now been filled in.
The gable of the N. transept (fig.1) still entire,
is of earlier character than the W. gable, although
built within the same period. Like the W. gable its
corners are clasped by buttresses from between
which advances the parish doorway surmounted by
a parvise. This entrance also is built in recessed
orders and its jambs have been shafted; the moulded
shaft-bases show the elliptical contour typical of
Transitional work, while the capitals are variously
scalloped and foliated, the foliage being a simple
development from the scallop. The arch-head,
slightly elliptical in its curve, is built in three orders,
the outermost one having both nail-head enrichment
and a projecting member enriched at intervals with
petals. The two other orders bear paterae, the inner
ones square, the outer ones star-shaped. From a
string-course above the arch-head rises an interlaced
arcade. In this the five central bays out of the total
of nine have lancet lights in their backs. The
triangular pediment completing the doorway bears
a reticulated enrichment, also seen on the front of
Lincoln Cathedral and ultimately derived from
Carolingian ornament.
At the base of the gable, the spaces between the
doorway and the buttresses that flank it are each
occupied by s single bay of plain arcading. Higher
up, the lesena or shallow pilaster rises from the apex
of the door-pediment and divides the two middle
storeys into two equal bays, each of which has a
window at the triforium and clearstorey levels similar
to those on the outer sides of the transepts and
Galilee. The stage between the clearstorey and the
wall-head, which is defined by a string-course, has
in the centre, above the lesena, a single circular light
surmounted by a pointed relieving-arch, the upper
part of this circular window and its relieving-arch
representing a reconstruction, most obvious from
inside. Two circular stair-turrets, developing one
course below wall-head level, surmount the clasping
buttresses at the gable corners. They originally
flanked a triangular gable-head, like those which
surmounted the Galilee and S. transept-gables and
generally similar to the one still extant at the W.end
of Jedburgh Abbey (No. 414). But the gable-head
has been removed and replaced by the present arcade
of three open arches, each of which still contained a
bell in the late 18th century;[1] no doubt it was the
chain or "tow" of the western bell that eroded the
vertical groove seen on the W. side of the relieving-
arch previously mentioned. This arcade has moulded
archivolts, generally resembling those of the nave
triforium gallery although rather smaller in scale,
springing from imposts enriched with dog-tooth
ornament. It is completed by a triangular pediment
having a circular opening in its tympanum. The
pediment tabling bears an enrichment, whether
indented or a dog-tooth is uncertain. An arcade
such as this is an unusual terminal for a mediaeval
gable, and it is, moreover, obvious that the transept
roof must have cut across the openings unless it was
hipped back; these two facts suggest a late date for
the construction of the arcade, although its archi-
tectural detail resembles early 13th-centry work
and as the figures 16[49?] appear on the pediment
above the circular opening, the erection of the arcade
should probably be dated to that year.
The gable of the S. transept (Fig. 298) is also
clasped by corner buttresses, in this instance rising
from the wall-head of the W. range of the cloisters
and not from the ground. Above the vault covering
the lower storey of the range two openings can be
traced in the gable; both were extant when Slezer's
view was prepared but they have now been filled in.
These openings, which are formed of re-used material,
are clearly secondary. Otherwise the gable shows
no openings below the clearstorey, where there are
two windows corresponding to the clearstorey lights
of the other divisions, the only difference being the
absence of a lesena between them. The upper part
of the gable has been renewed, and part of a circular
window has been included in the modern masonry;
the inclusion of this window hardly seems to be
justified, as Slezer's view shows no light in this
1. Arch., ii, 83; Grose, Antiquities of Scotland, i, 113
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No. 504 KELSO PARISH
position nor does one appear in a survey prepared
by the late Sir R. Rowand Anderson in 1869, before
the renewal took place. The circular turrets in which
the corner buttresses terminate also include some
modern mason-work.
The south arcade of the nave (Fig.301) is now
exposed externally, as the outer wall of the aisle has
been demolished. The space above the aisle vaults
was the triforium chamber, opening into the sur-
viving bay of the nave triforium arcade by a narrow
arched doorway, the survivor of three; its threshold
has been dropped three courses. The triforium
chamber also opened into the arcade of the neigh-
bouring transept through a double archway with a
sturdy central pier, the capital and base of which which are
both depressed. Its roof was steeply pitched and
unusually high, extenidng up to the continuous sill-
course of the clearstorey windows of the nave and
transept. The walls above are divided into bays by
shallow pilasters on the plane of the walling below
them, the masonry between being consequently
recessed. In each bay there is a clearstory window
similar to those elsewhere. Immediately above the
clearstorey runs the lowest course of the wall-head,
set out to the main wall-plane on a series of small
corbels. Some of this masonry, however, is a
restoration.
The W. and S. sides of the surviving tower have
been reduced in height, but are otherwise complete;
the two other sides and the NW. crossing-pier no
longer exist. Their crossing-arches were built in
three chamfered orders, the innermost one of the W.
arch being incomplete today. The surviving piers
each have a large semi-shaft on the ingoing flanked
by a series of small rolls or shafts set in nooks. The
SW. pier has been greatly distorted through settle-
ment, possibly as a result of the undermining carried
out on both crossing-towers in 1545. The pier bases
are flatly sectioned. The capitals are enriched
variously with scallops and with a late type of Tran-
sitional foliage, their abaci being rectangular like the
others that occur throughout the building. The
tower itself has buttresses at its corners rising from
the high wall-heads, at which level it has had a single
round-arched opening in the centre of each wall.
The opening is built in two orders, the outer one
supported on nook-shafts. Higher up is a small
lintelled access to the roof-space above which two
circular quatrefoiled windows of the 13th century
flank the apex of the high-roof weather-table. Three
pointed windows in each wall lighted the bell-
chamber above. The window jambs have a single
wide splay, but the arch-heads are splayed and
rebated.
THE CHURCH: Interior. The internal treatment
of this church has been unusually rich for Scotland,
its walls being decorated with arcades which are
virtually unrelieved by plain wall-surfaces. In the
nave, design has been predominantly horizontal in
contrast to the vertical factor apparent in the tran-
septs and Galilee. The absence of containing-arches
gave an opportunity to increase the clearstorey light-
ing, but of this no advantage has been taken. The
nave, indeed, must have been a sombre place,
although to an observer looking from it towards the
radiantly lit crossings at either end the general
appearance of the interior would undoubtedly have
been impressive.
In the transepts and Galilee the lowest part of the
walls bears an interlaced arcade, the rather coarse
moulding of its arches having in some cases a beak-
head enrichment, in others a chevron on fret, while
almost all the mouldings also show the nail-head, a
motif applied to many of the capitals as well. Most
of the arcade shafts are either missing or incomplete.
Their bases are moulded, their capitals either scal-
loped or rudely foliated. This arcade had been
continuous only on the side walls of the Galilee and
the W. walls of the transepts, being interrupted
elsewhere by the doorways in the N. and W. gables,
the arches between the nave aisles and the transepts,
and a chapel situated at the NE. corner of the S.
transept. It was to accommodate this chapel that
the E. half of the S. gable was recessed within an
arch with an enriched hood-mould. The back of
the recess (Fig.303) contains a piscina in an arched
niche, this being sufficiently large to include a small
locker on each side of its interior. Farther W. is an
independent locker, as well as an aumbry in the W.
ingoing of the recess. The projecting course from
which all these openings rise is enriched with
dog-tooth ornament.
The W. buttresses of the transept gables are
hollow and contain newel-stairs giving access to the
wall-passages and superstructure. The main angles
of the Galilee and transepts contain slender engaged
shafts, those within the inner angles stopping at the
high wall-heads, while the others upon the gables
have risen a dozen courses higher and would seem
to have appeared above the high roofs. The lowest
windows of these W. divisions are built in two order
inside, the inner one supported on nook-shafts,
mostly built with bands, resting on moulded Tran-
sitional bases and surmounted by rudely foliated
capitals. In the transept gables, however, there are
no windows at this level, as the N. transept-gable is
covered at this height by the N. doorway, the high
rear-arch of which precludes any other openings
here, while on the outside of the S. transept-gable
there stood the W. range of the cloister. In place of
windows here we find two arched recesses on the
inside of the gable, generally corresponding to the
arcade formed elsewhere by the lowest windows, but
the eastern one of the pair had to rise from a higher
level than its neighbour in order to clear the arched
recess of the chapel previously mentioned. Its sill
bears a pellet or ball-enrichment.
The triforium passage was intended to be con-
tinuous throughout the whole church, and actually
was so round the transepts and Galilee; but as it
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