E.EPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1901 81 



Admire the view of Kelso — "the most beautiful, if not the 

 most romantic village in Scotland "* — where the feeling for 

 natural beauty was first awakened in the breast of the boy 

 Walter Scott. "It presents objects, not only grand in them- 

 selves, but venerable from their association. The meeting of 

 two superb rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot, both renowned 

 in song, the ruins of an ancient Abbey, etc."* 



The archway at entrance to park was erected in 1822, from 

 a design by Q-illespie Grahame. 



The bank on the left, or south, side of the coach-road 

 bears evidence of having been at some pre-historic period 

 " water-washed," i.e. the bank of a river, which has altered 

 its course and level. The field on the other side of the road is 

 alluvial deposit, and is famous for the quality of its grazing. 



The disused churchyard within the field was that attached 

 to the village of Maxwell, which formerly occupied this site. 

 The surrounding land was granted by David the First to 

 Maccus, son of Undewyn,f a trusted follower, whose name 

 had appeared as a witness to the Inquisitio Davidis, in 1116.| 

 The land thus granted may perhaps be considered as the 

 cradle of the Maxwell family in Scotland. 



A small enclosure not far from the churchyard marks the 

 site of the old mansion-house of Brig-end, the property of 

 Sir William Ker of Grreenhead, from whose family the estate 

 was acquired by James Douglas in 1750. The house of Brig- 

 end had been destroyed by fire in 1714, under somewhat 

 romantic circumstances, the burning being an act of revenge 

 on the part of some gipsies, who considered that they had 

 been hardly used by Sir William, in his capacity as Justice 

 of Peace. For their share in the crime, eight persons — six 

 of them women — were traasported to the American plantations, 

 whilst the supposed instigator, Patrick Faa, had in addition 

 his ears cut off, and was scourged and pilloried in the street 

 of Jedburgh. 



In the Chapel park, three beech trees and a modern inscribed 

 stone mark the site of an oratory dedicated to St. Thomas the 



* Aatobiography of Scott, prefixed to Lockhart's Life, 

 t Jeffrey's Roxburghshire, vol. iii., p. 178. 

 X Registrnm Episcopatus Glasguensis, p. 5. 

 L 



