REPORT OF THE MEETINGS IFOR 1896 29 



they hoped that the stately buildings they reared would outlast a 

 full millennium at the least. 'But time,' as Sir Thomas 

 Browne says ' antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make 

 dust of all things ;' and we now behold only the shadow of 

 what was once so glorious, but whose glory has passed away for 

 ever. Here on this side are the remains of the once magnificent 

 Church ; the solitary gable on that side is all that is left of 

 the Eefectory; there, on the east, is the long line of buildings 

 devoted to the occupation of the monks, and to their delibera- 

 tions in chapter ; and beyond, is all that survives of what was 

 probably the Gruest Hall of the Abbey, where, if we had only 

 ante-dated our visit by a few hundred years, we should no 

 doubt have enjoyed the hospitality of the grave, white-habited 

 canons. But all these were ruins centuries before the institution 

 of Antiquarian Societies and Field Clubs, and before the 

 existence of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club — the oldest 

 of them all — was even dreamed of. 



" Most of the conventual buildings would appear to have 

 been erected not many years after the date of the foundation 

 of the Abbey, the style of the architecture being that of the 

 transition from Norman to Early English, which took place in 

 the closing years of the 12th century, or the beginning of the 

 13th. The eastern portion of the church, with the transept 

 and its chapels, is of the purest and most beautiful Early 

 English ; and we are fortunate enough, in this connection, to 

 have an actual date supplied to us in a deed granted in favour 

 of the monks by the Bishop of St. Andrews, in 1242, the terms 

 of which show that the monastery was then in course of erection. 

 Being very near the English border, the Abbey suffered 

 repeatedly from the attacks of our Southern neighbours. 

 Edward II. burned the buildings in 1322, and a similar 

 outrage was committed by Richard II. in 1385. The character 

 of the architecture of the west end of the nave, as we shall see, 

 points to the re-edification or restoration of that part of the 

 church sometime after the last mentioned year. The coup de 

 grace was given by the lieutenants of Henry YIII., Evei'S and 

 Hertford, in 1544, when Dryburgh shared the fate of Melrose 

 and the other Border Abbeys, and Teviotdale and the Merse 

 were reduced to 'a smoking desert,' to gratify the lust for 

 revenge of a monarch who, by a bitter irony, surely, was the 

 first to bear the title of 'Defender of the Faith.'" 



