Anniversanj Address. 129 



high, and as many in diameter at the base. It is said to have 

 formerly been considerably higher; and it was then useful as 

 a " Mead" or landmark for seamen. This mass is a kind of 

 scoria with fragments of greywacke interspersed. Its origin is 

 doubtful ; one account states, that about sixty years ago, in 

 accordance with the advice of Sir James Hall, an attempt was 

 made to procure lime by burning the greywacke, and that the 

 " Danders" was the result. The popular name however indicates 

 a more remote origin ; and it is scarcely probable thafso^'good 

 a geologist and chemist as Sir James HaU would recommend 

 such an attempt, since greywacke contains little or no lime. 

 More probable is the opinion, that the "Danders" is a monu- 

 ment of an abortive experiment made by the mediaeval Monks 

 of Ooldingham to obtain lime from rocks in their own district, 

 to save the expense of bringing it from the neighbourhood of 

 Berwick. 



' ' Ecclesiastical remains are on two of the hills constituting 

 Abb's point — on the Kirk Hill and on the Headland. A monas- 

 tery was erected at an early period in Saxon times on Abb's Head, 

 probably indeed sometime previously to the middle of the seventh 

 century.* Certain it is, however, that about this period Ebba 

 was the head of a religious establishment here, when, according 

 to Bede, it was visited by the renowned Northumbrian Saint 

 Cuthbert. Not long after Ebba's death it was burnt through care- 

 lessness in A.D. 679. Another convent- was subsequently built, 

 but whether on the Headland or on the site of the Priory of 

 Coldingham is doubtful. This was also, in A.D. 870, destroyed 

 by the Danish chieftains Inguar and Hubba. Of the early Saxon 

 buildings on the Headland no vestiges remain ; and the ruins now 

 seen on the two hills are, I think, referable to the early part of 

 the twelfth century; for in Oarr's History of Coldingham, written 

 in 1836, it is stated, that " the walls of St* Abb's Kirk and a small 

 Saxon arch were seen within these few years." Doubtless the 

 arch referred to was of the Norman period ; it was the fashion at 

 the period when Mr. Carr wrote, to call "Saxon," the circular 

 arches which are now well known to be the work of the latter 

 portion of the eleventh and early portion of the twelfth centuries. 



*When St. Ebta drifted on shore at Coldburg Head, about 640 A.D., she 

 found a religious establishment already existing. It was probably founded 

 by St. Cuthbert about -570 A.D. 



