Ladykirk Parish. By Rev. William Dobie. 375 



The Eeformation completed in Scotland in 1560. 



In the Post-Eieformation Registers (a) of the year 1567 we 

 learn that Andrew Winsister was reader in Upsetlington. — 

 Stipend :s.xli. in 1570. James Ross reidare at Horndene. — 

 Stipend of 'k.yiU. to be payit out of the third of Kelso, be the 

 taxmen or parochiners of Horndean, and (b) of the year 1574- 

 Upsetlington is vacant, Andrew Winsister having removed to 

 Fishwick to supply the place of David Douglas, who had been 

 vicar in Fishwick and exhorter in Horndene, from Candlemas 

 1567 to Lambmas 1572. In the register 1574 James Ross is 

 reidare at Horndene, and about this date the ministers were 

 assigned their stipends in sterling money. It has not been very 

 clearly made out in what year the original parishes of Upset- 

 lington and Horndene were united, but it is on record that Mr 

 Andrew Winsister was translated from Fishwick to Ladykirk in 

 the year 1576, from which date we hear no more of Horndene 

 as a separate parish. 



The two ancient churches have entirely disappeared — the 

 materials have been appropriated for uses other than eccles- 

 iastical, and we have now for the united parishes, and within the 

 boundaries of the Old Upsetlington, the church founded by 

 James lY of Scotland, Anno Domini 1500, that being the year 

 of the jubilee of a century, when Alexander VI. was pope. It 

 is on record that this church " remained neglected for a long 

 time, as left off unfinished, and had nearly gone into ruins." In 

 1741 William Robertson of Hillhousefield, Mid-Lothian, became 

 proprietor of the Barony of Ladykirk, potius, Upsetlington, and 

 he along with Mr Thomas Coutts, proprietor of Horndean, 

 undertook and got executed (as Fundi parochialis Domini, or 

 Heritors of the parish) the repairs needed in the body of the 

 churcli ; the expense of which was defrayed by Mr Robertson 

 paying two thirds, and Mr Thomas Coutts the remaining third. 

 About the same time Mr Robertson employed the celebrated Mr 

 William Adam, Architect, Edinburgh, to delineate a plan and 

 give a steeple as near as possible in the style of the supposed 

 intended steeple, and this was carried out at the sole expense of 

 Mr William Robertson himself. This steeple may be classic, 

 but the skilled in architecture say it is not Gothic, For a very 

 trustworthy paper on the architecture of the church, vid. 

 Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, Part I., 1890, pp. 135, 6, 7, 8, 

 by Mr John Ferguson, Duns. 



