92 The Pre- Reformation Churches of Berwickshire, 



the spot where the first Celtic Missionaries preached the Gospel 

 to the wild tribes then inhabiting the eastern parts of Lammer- 

 muir, these scanty ruins become invested with a much higher 

 than a merely antiquarian interest. They represent what may 

 fairly claim to be the Mother Church of the district, and the 

 survival, for so many centuries, of the foundations of this humble 

 fane, may well symbolise the imperishable nature of that Trutli 

 which was proclaimed, so long ago, within its walls. 



The Priory or Nunnery, which was dedicated to St. Mary, 

 was founded for Cistercian nuns, between 1184 and 1200 by 

 Ada, wife of Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, the illegitimate daughter 

 of William the Lion.*- It is said to have been originally a cell 

 of South Berwick, but it appears in no long time after its 

 foundation to have become independent. Remains of the con- 

 ventual buildings were visible about the close of last century, 

 when the Old Statistical Account of the Parish was written. The 

 last vestiges disappeared rather more than fifty years ago. 



The Church of the Priory served as the Parish Church after 

 the Reformation, but it has been so much curtailed and altered 

 at various times, that very little of the original fabric is left. 

 What is now the E. wall, 24 feet wide by 4 feet thick, and 

 evidently for the most part ancient, is pierced about the middle 

 of the elevation by a round-headed, widely counter-splayed 

 window, 8 feet high by 2 feet wide, which retains its ancient 

 plate tracery in the head, forming a trefoiled termination to 

 each of the two lights into which it has been divided, and dis- 

 playing a quatre-fuiled circle in the space above. The dividing 

 monial is a restoration. The tracery is more worn and decayed 

 on the internal than on the external side, and the splay of the 

 outer sill of the window is much deeper than that of the inner 

 one. There is also an intake on the wall above the window 

 externally. These are somewhat puzzling features, and would 

 seem to show that the modern church has been built to the 

 west of the original edifice, thus converting its west wall into 

 the eastern gable of the new structure. This view is borne out 

 by the fact that close to the northern extremity of the same 

 wall, on what is now its external side, there are stones project- 

 ing from its face, as if it had extended farther to the east. The 



*Fatlici' Hay attributes the foundation to Christian or Cristina, Earl 

 Patrick's second wife. (Seethe ' Liber de Melros,' No. 48.) Cardonnel, 

 following Dngdale,erroneously gives the name of the foundress as Enphemia. 



