100 The Pre- Reformation Churches of Berwickshire. 



CHIRKSIDE. 



Copious notices of this ancient village and its churcli may be 

 found in the Club's Proceedings for 1854 and 1860, and in Carr's 

 " History of Coldiugham," and to these reference is made for 

 pai'ticulars of its history. It is sufficient to mention here that 

 the name "Chirnesid" first occurs in a Charter granted by 

 Edgar, King of Scots, between the years 1098 and 1107, in 

 favour of the church and monks of St. Cuthbert, Durham, in 

 which the place is designated a " mansio;^^ and that in the 

 Taxatio of 1176 " ecclesia de Chirnesyd " is valued at 50 merks.* 

 The church must have been erected, therefore, sometime before 

 the last mentioned year; and judging from the details of the 

 south doorway, which is the only feature of the ancient structure 

 remaining, we cannot be far wrong in placing the date of its 

 foundation a little before the middle of the 12th century. In 

 1396 it was annexed as a prebend to the collegiate church of 

 Dunbar. 



The church formerly possessed the adjunct of a western tower, 

 which was taken down about the year 1 750 ; and it would seem, 

 from a reference in the Old Statistical Account of the parish, to 

 have been vaulted in stone. The existing south wall, and 

 portions of the others, are of great thickness, and are probably 

 original; but if so, they have been to a considerable extent 

 refaced in the course of the somewhat frequent repairs and 

 restorations to which the building has been subjected. It is 

 fortunate that these operations — the last of which was carried 

 through in 1876, and in a manner, let us thankfully admit, on 

 the whole both tasteful and appropriate — have left to us in very 

 nearly its oi-iginal state the interesting doorway already referred to. 

 {Plate I.) It consists of a recessed semicircular archway of two 

 square-edged orders, rising from cylindrical shafts with scolloped 

 capitals and square abaci, the lower edges of which are bevelled 

 olf. The daylight, or actual entrance to the building, is square 

 headed, with a fiattish edge roll i-ound the jambs and lintel ; and 

 the tympanum, which measures 18 inches to the soffit of the 

 inner arch, is quite plain. The outer face of the inner order is 

 chevroned ; two quarter rolls placed side by side are carried 

 round the external one ; and a plain weather moulding or hood, 



* Liber de Aberbrothoc ; Registrum Prioratus Sancti Andrea ; Ban- 

 iiaiyiie Club. Coldiughaiu Charters iii Appendix to llaine'b Nortli 

 Durham. 



