St Mary's Chapel, Park, Roxburghshire

Grid reference

NT 534 451 (accurate position)

Six-figure easting & northing

353400 645100

Latitude

55.697128696744436

Longitude

-2.7414720517309847

County

Roxburghshire

Nearby places

St Leonards Hill, Lauder (0.92 miles)

St Leonard's, ~eccles. & ~hospital, Lauder (1.23 miles)

St Leonards Mill, Lauder (1.34 miles)

St Leonards, settlement Lauder (1.34 miles)

Lauder, parish (1.51 miles)

Object Classification

Antiquity

Ecclesiastical

Is linear feature?

No

Notes

aka Chieldhelles Chapel. Charter evidence proves that this was the site of the Chapel of St Mary of the Park which was given to Melrose Abbey in 1188; and that its 'court' was bounded on the west, north, and 'towards the east gate' by a ditch (which the modern county boundary appears to have followed). The bound on the south was the Milsie Burn. Milne states that it was "a fine chapel of hewn stone" but no trace of a building now survives. Only the last vestiges of an oblong enclosure remain, measuring 15 yds NW-SE by 12 yds transversely, within a boundary wall now very much wasted, which has been from 3 1/2 ft to 5 ft thick. Within the enclosure are tombstone fragments not earlier than the 18th century. The OS Name Book says the interior of the chapel was used for burials until the beginning of the 19th century. (CANMORE) The boundaries of the land attached to Saint Mary's chapel are thus described — ' As the ditch surrounds the court of the chapel, and westward and northward and towards the eastern gate, and thence downwards to the rivulet descending from the wood on the north side of the causeway to the rivulet by which two fish-pools are formed, of which we have assigned the upper to the foresaid chapel, and the lower to our sick of Bune, and thence upwards by the same rivulet as far as the fosse which surrounds the foresaid court of the chapel on the west side.' (OPS i, 281)

Relationships with other parishes

Within Melrose, parish