464 Meport of Meetings. By the President. 



were mostly sbort, which indicated an earlier people, who folded 

 up the bodies of their dead, and probably also practised urn- 

 burial. '1 o account for it, an imaginary battle had been suggested 

 between tribes whose boundary was the Tyne. 



But the most extraordinary assemblage known of ancient 

 graves in this immediate district, concerning which there remains 

 not any tradition, is that at Knowes, which lies in the Parish 

 of Tyningham, on the Tyne, a short distance below Linton. 

 Knowes, anciently Cnolle, was one of the sites of early Saxon 

 civilization, which King Duncan during his short reign (1094) 

 annexed to Lindisfarne, probably because they had been Christian- 

 ised by some of St Cuthbert's disciples. Baltherus himself is said 

 not to have been a disciple of St Mungo, but belonged to the 

 Saxon school. There is a fac-simile of the charter in Eaine's 

 "North Durham," facing page 373. The following six places 

 were by it given to St Cuthbert : *' Tiningeham, Aldeham, Scuc- 

 hale, Cnolle, Hatheruuich, and Broccesmuthe, and all the service 

 Fodauus the bishop had therefrom." Fodan or Fothad II., 

 was bishop of St Andrews, 1051-1093 — " acunnand,"i. e. kuown- 

 ing, '' man," writes Wyntoun. This resumption by Lindisfarne 

 occurs in the interval of ten years, between the demise of Fothad 

 and the election of Turgot, his successor. In after times future 

 bishops of St Andrews appear to have had a residence near 

 Cnolle. Many ecclesiastical documents connected with the 

 diocese of St Andrews were dated from Tyningham, which is 

 within moderate proximity. "A field adjoining the present 

 farm-house [of Knowes] is called the Bishop's gar de7i.'^ (Miller's 

 *' St Baldred of the Bass," p. 8 1 .) I have met with two accounts 

 of the discovery of the graves, one contemporary, from a news- 

 paper, the other traditional, in Miller's "St Baldred of the 

 Bass," 1824. I incorporate the two. 



October, 1813. "Lately, on trenching with the plough (giving a deep 

 furrow) a field (south from the house) possessed by Wm. Hunter, Esq., 

 at the Knowes, East Lothian, and belonging to the Earl of Haddington, a 

 number of stone-coffins were uncovered, ranged in rows from S. to N., 

 with the heads to the west, and, as far as discovered, covering an extent 

 of ground, measuring in length 54 yards and in breadth 26. They are 

 computed to exceed 500 (6 or 700, Miller), in number. Each coffin lies 

 about two or three inches from the side of the other, with the heads in 

 exact hues, and about two or three feet from each row. They are formed 

 of flat stones, neatly joined together on the sides, and the exact form of 

 our present coffins, and covered on the top with flag-stones: some of 



