124 Tiie Pt'e- Reformation Churches of Berwickshire. 



burial-ground which was attached to the former is still in use, 

 and the site of the latter is marked by an old ash tree at the 

 west end of the village, on the summit of what is still known as 

 the ''Chapel Knowe."*' 



The priory of Eccles was founded for Cistercian nuns by 

 Cospatrick, third Earl of Dunbar, about the year 1156. It was 

 dedicated to the "Virgin ; but the church, which had been pre- 

 viously attached to the manor or parish, seems to have been 

 consecrated to St Cuthbert and St Andrew. The prioress 

 was one of the heads of religious houses in Berwickshire 

 who swore fealty to Edward I. at Berwick in 1296. The con- 

 ventual buildings were burned by the Earl of Hertford in his 

 destructive raid of 1545. The church however was spared, and it 

 remained entire until about 1774, when the heritors of the 

 parish, finding it too small for parochial purposes, ruthlessly 

 demolished it, and used the materials in the construction of the 

 modern church. This act of vandalism is the more to be re- 

 gretted, as it is evident, from the brief description of the church 

 given in the Old Statistical Account, that it had been a building 

 of some pretensions, with a tower or "steeple," and in good 

 preservation. So well built was it that its removal was an opera- 

 of extreme difficulty, and, we may hope, considering the " sordid 

 motives " which prompted it, of considerable cost as well. 



Some confused ruins of the monastic buildings are to be seen 

 at the west side of th-e churchyard, and behind the mansion of 

 Eccles House, the east wall of which is evidently ancient, and 

 doubtless formed part of the old nunnery. Two vaulted cells, 

 displaying on the external side of the north wall a blocked 

 round-headed window, and a small fragment of string-course 

 with the billet ornament much wasted, are the most noteworthy 

 portions of the remains. A ruinous vault on the north side of the 

 church is also extant. It has two doorways, and a round-headed 

 window, all blocked up ; but the whole has manifestly undergone 

 considerable alteration at no very distant date, and it is almost 

 impossible to pronounce with confidence upon its primitive 

 features, f 



A stone, which looks as if it had formed part of a spout or 

 ablution drain, has been built into a low wall at the back of the 



* New Statistical Account, p. 50. Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, vol. x., p. 252. 

 t See- the description of the ruins of the Nunnery in the New Statistical 

 Account. 



