130 Restoration of Jedburgh Ahhey. By Jas. Watson. 



edifice. The roof was flat and under the clerestory. Worship 

 continued to be held in this place till April, 1875, and might 

 have been much longer but for the liberality of the Marquis of 

 Lothian who built a handsome new church for the parish in ex- 

 cambion of the old one with a view to having this excresence 

 removed. The arrangement for this was made by the late Lord 

 Lothian, and fulfilled in a highly generous spirit by the present 

 Marquis. 



Lord Lothian being fully alive to the importance of the work 

 connected with the removal of the old church from the Abbey, 

 and the future preservation of the venerable ruins, very wisely 

 determined to have it done under the superintendence of a skilled 

 architect, and for this purpose he procured the services of Mr 

 Eobert Eowland Anderson, Edinburgh, a gentleman who 

 deservedly occupies a high position in the profession. The 

 taking down of the modern masonry brought to light many curi- 

 ous and valuable specimens of the art of the carver, and of 

 moulded stones formed hundreds of years ago by the hands of 

 cunning workmen, but which by the vandals of the end of the 

 18th century were looked upon as only so much rubble, and used 

 by them as such. The interest attached to their discovery was 

 something akin to what a geologist would have experienced in 

 disinterring a like number oi fossils from some ancient forma- 

 tions ; each specimen having a character peculiarly its own, and 

 the period to which it belonged being quite easily ascertained. 

 The comparative anatomist could with no greater certainty piece 

 together the bones of an extinct animal than could these 

 stones be assigned to their respective places in the ancient 

 building. Many of them exhibited the chevron, the cable, dog- 

 tooth, star, nail-head, and other ornaments, all belonging to the 

 Transition Norman, and which, there could be little doubt, 

 formed part of the doorway that was taken down when a portion 

 of the south aisle was removed in 1792. Then there were bases, 

 capitals, at least one piscina ; groin ribs, and various other 

 mouldings, aU of an early date. These have been preserved 

 within the precincts of the Abbey. A number of Scottish 

 copper coins belonging to the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, 

 Charles I., and Charles II. were also come upon by the workmen, 

 and were claimed by the Crown as treasure trove. It was unfor- 

 tunately found necessary for the protection of the nave to place a 

 series of tie-beams across at the clerestory, which greatly mar 



