IIEPORTS 0^ MEETINGS FOR 1909 35 



In an interesting paper, entitled " The early ecclesiastical 

 history of East Lothian and the Bass," by John 

 Church of Stuart, LL.D.,* St. Baldred or Balther, the patron 

 St. Baldred. saint of East Lothian who died early in the 7th 

 century, is said to have occupied a cell at 

 Tyninghame, on whose site was built a monastic settlement 

 with a territory extending "a Lamhermore usque ad Escemuthe." 

 In the immediate neighbourhood of the Tyne three Churches 

 are specially associated with his name — those of Aldhame, 

 Preston, and Tyninghame, to the last of which was granted 

 the right of sanctuary, referred to in a charter by Malcolm IV. 

 bestowing on the monks of Kelso the church of Innerleithen, 

 whither the dead body of his son recovered from the Tweed 

 had been transported, and conferring on it the like privileges 

 possessed by Wedale (Stow) and Tyninghame. In 941, Anlaf, 

 King of the Norwegians, having been chosen by the North- 

 umbrians successor to Edmund whose authority they had 

 disowned, and having effected a landing at Scoughall Sands, 

 a little way North of Tyninghame, set fire to and plundered the 

 Church of St. Baldred there. Prior to the Refoi-mation the lands 

 belonged to St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, one of the titles 

 of the Archbishop being Lord Tyninghame. In 1760 the parish 

 was united to the adjoining one of Whitekirk, though not without 

 a protest from the inhabitants, many of whom were fishermen 

 occupying a hamlet on the banks of the Tyne. At this period 

 the ancient buildings were much defaced, their walls being pulled 

 down and destroyed. The graveyard also was ploughed up, and 

 the gravestones squandered. The only remains of the sacred 

 edifice are two well preserved Norman arches, dividing the nave 

 and choir and sanctuary, one of which affords strong traces of 

 Byzantine work (Plate lY.). On the South wall under a 

 Gothic canopy lies a stone effigy of a woman whose identity has 

 not been ascertained, though local tradition connects the figure 

 with an unknown abbess. This " beautiful fragment," as Cosmo 

 Innes describes the existing arches, reminiscent of the 1 2th century, 

 has been religiously protected by the succeeding representatives 

 of the noble house of Baillie-Hamilton, who for several genera- 

 tions have been interred within its hallowed precincts. 



* Ber. Nat. Club, Vol. vii., p. 87. 



