184 

 CHIENSIDE. 



By John Stuart, F.S.A., Edinburgh. 



Before the great start which agricultural improvement took 

 in the Lothians in the early part of last century, there re- 

 mained many evidences of early British possession which are 

 not now to be seen. Of these the sepulchral cairns which 

 seem to have been numerous in this district may be referred 

 to. In the end of last century the vestige remained of a large 

 cairn, which had stood on the eastern and highest summit of 

 the hill upon the side of which the village of Chirnside stands, 

 and two cairns were placed on Edington Hill, which, with a 

 small interval, is a continuation of the same ridge. From one 

 of these cairns a cist was taken and removed to a gentleman's 

 place in the neighbourhood. It is recorded that near these 

 cairns there might have been seen, till within the last 40 or 

 50 years, the remains of a British encampment. 



From the most conspicuous cairn referred to, it is said that 

 the parish takes its name. But, however this may be, we find 

 very early notices of the district among the Coldingham char- 

 ters, printed by Dr. Raine in the appendix of his valuable 

 work on the history of North Durham. Under the name of 

 a "mansio," Chirnside was given by King Edgar to the monks 

 of Durham, and this suggests the thought that parishes had 

 not as yet become one of the fixed institutions of Scotland, 

 and also some of the circumstances from which these divisions 

 took their origin. In the time of Bede, it is plain that the 

 christianizing of the country was left mostly to the hands of 

 the clergy in monasteries, who scattered themselves over the 

 country, in various circuits, to perform the offices of religion, 

 but returned to the monastery as head quarters. Still, the 

 want of a permanent centre in the remote districts must have 

 been severely felt, and in Bede's letter to Archbishop Egbert 

 he urges him to ordain a number of priests who should visit 

 every village preaching the word of God, consecrating the 

 heavenly mysteries and administering the sacrament of baptism 

 as often as possible. This arrangement would naturally soon 

 be developed into a system of settled clergy, with certain dis- 

 tricts allotted to their charge, and it appears from the enact- 

 ments of a provincial council held in 747, that the collegiate 

 and conventual bodies had been induced to erect on their lands 

 churches which were served by priests under the superiors of 

 those bodies, and that moreover the lands of the lay proprietors 



