252 Dr. R. Hood on Coldingham Priory. 



the present tenant there ; but he kindly gave over the font to 

 me, npon promise of a substantial pig's-trough being sent in 

 exchange. From the continued rubbing it has endured from the 

 snouts of the porcine genus, who have fed out of it, the sides are 

 a good deal worn, and there is also a mutilation, where it had 

 evidently been built into the wall of the Abbey, and had forcibly 

 been broken off, from the effects of some heavy mass falling upon 

 it — it might be when the Abbey was cannonaded by Oliver Crom- 

 well — otherwise it is in wonderful condition, considering its age. 

 It is composed of a close-grained freestone, such as is seen at 

 present at the church of Coldingham, It is so massive that it 

 is almost impossible for one person to lift it, and the carving on 

 the outside is a good example of the style of the period in which 

 it was executed. 



Thinking that it might interest the Members of the Club — an 

 account of the adventures this stone has gone through — I have 

 ventured to bring it under their notice, and trust they will 

 pardon the imperfect description I have produced. 



Chiraside, 27th October, 1856. 



Remarks on Coldingham i riory. 

 By Robert Hood, M.D., Edinburgh. 



[With a Plate.] 



The antiquity of Coldingham is ascertained by its being marked 

 in Ptolemy's map under the title of ' Colonia,' being the La- 

 tinized name of the Cole ; which latter word is frequently met 

 with as the name of persons and places in Britain, and appears 

 to be a word used by the early inhabitants of this island. Some 

 places in Denmark still retain the name of Colding, ding or ing 

 in the Scandinavian signifying ' vale/ which leads to the suspi- 

 cion that this district was early peopled by the inhabitants of 

 the opposite continent. The rivulet that runs past Coldingham 

 to the sea is named Cole, and a mill near to its mouth is still 

 called the Cole Mill, and a marshy piece of ground near by, 

 Colebogue, Colebog. By this view, the Saxon ' ham,' or village, 

 will be, the town in the vale of the Cole. 



Christianity must have been very early introduced into this 

 district, as, when St. Ebb drifted ashore in her ' lone bark ' at 

 the headland called, in the Saxon period, Coldbury Head, she 

 was received by the members of a religious establishment al- 

 ready fixed there, but for how long before is unknown. St. Ebb's 

 advent is considered to have taken place in a.d. 640, leaving 

 thus several centuries to intervene between this and the Roman 

 notice, so that some of the emissaries of St. Palladius may have 



