Notices concerning Oxnam Parish. By J. Hardy. 119 



and to have been acquired by the Eernieherst family. In the 

 Taxt Eoll of the Abbey of Jedburgh, 1626, Andrew, Master of 

 Jedburgh, accounts "for Priestfield, worth 10 merks" and "payes 

 1 merk," (Morton's Annals of Teviotdale, p. 63.) I find no other 

 notice of it, but on May 8, 1 629, Andrew Lord Jedburgh is retoured 

 heir of Sir Thomas Ker of Phairniherst, his father, in the lands 

 of Eiccletoun and "VVeymeslandes, (Eetours, Eox. no. 140) ; and 

 on Feb. 3, 1693, AVilliam Lord Jedburgh, oldest son of Eobert 

 Earl of Lothian, is retoured heir of Eobert Lord Jedburgh, his 

 kinsman, in the lands of Eickleton including the teinds (lb. no. 

 307), and the Priestfield may be included under that head in 

 both instances. 



The "Kirstening Well " may be conjectured to have been the 

 fountain that supplied the water necessary to fill the font for 

 administering baptism ; or it may have been a survival of a 

 church of British or Saxon age, consecrated by primitive usage 

 in the initiation of heathen converts. In support of the latter 

 view, there is a possibility of the neighbouring church of Plen- 

 derleith, about a mile distant, of which the spiritual oversight 

 also belonged to Jedburgh having in its name Cambro-British 

 elements : Plender or Prender being the equivalent of Plan, a 

 church."* Wells whose water was drawn for baptismal purposes 

 are referred to by Brand in his "Popular Antiquities," ii. 227 

 (Parish of Trinity Gask) and in North Wales, p. 228, (Knight's 

 edition). Within the district there was at Caverton close to the 

 cemetery of the ancient chapel there, a well called Holywell or 

 Priest's well (Old and New Stat. Accounts). This might have 

 been a baptismal well also. There are wells of apparently 

 similar purport in other -parts of the country. Christ's-well 

 chapel was in the parish of Innerkip and Greenock as far back 

 as the reign of Eobert III., and the name still remains. (Origines 

 Parochiales, i., p. 88.) Then there is a series of corrupted 

 names ; Kettie Thrist well, near Selkirk, Division of Selkirk 

 Common, 20th March 1681, Act. Pari. Scot. vol. viii., p. 422 ; 

 Katie Thristy well, Auchtermuchty ; Kitty first well, Girvan ; 

 Kitty muir well, Dalserf , Kitt} r is probably St Catherine : com- 

 pare with Cat's or Kate's well, Shotts. (Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. V., 

 N.S. pp. 210, 188). The thrist is more likely to be a corruption of 



* There is also a " Plenderleathy " in Berwickshire ; the name of a 

 heathy hill on the farm of Knock, on the Duns Castle Estate, on which 

 are some vestiges of walls or dikes. 



