Field Visit
Date 30 April 1915
Event ID 1087868
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1087868
What survives of this foundation lies within the grounds of a modern residence 200 yards south-west of North Berwick railway station, and consists of an oblong range of conventual buildings (fig.98) running east and west constructed of local rubble with yellow freestone dressings. The western portion has been two storeys and an attic in height. The basement floor contains four cellars ceiled with semi- circular barrel-vaults. The floor above has traces of a fireplace in the west gable and was lit by small lintelled windows in the lateral walls. In the east gable is a large pointed arched window or door, which opened into the upper floor of an oblong two-storeyed building in line with the western portion, of which only the much altered north wall is now standing. Midway between these buildings there projects on the north a square tower built of ashlar, which is evidently an addition of the late 16th century. It rises from a splayed basement course and has contained at least four storeys within the roof. The basement storey, like the other chambers on this floor, is ceiled in stone. A circular turret is corbelled out at the north-eastern angle and is enriched by two string courses, the upper of which returns across the face of the square . tower and, like the basement course, around a circular tower, built within the west re-entering angle which contains a fairly spacious circular stair leading to the upper floors of the west portion and square tower. This staircase is partly built of sandstone and partly of the local igneous red stone. The north wall of the west portion has a row of corbels on the exterior to bear a hoarding or penthouse roof. East of the square tower is' a square projection housing a large fireplace with a massive stalk. This fireplace would appear to have superseded a projecting porch covered with a splayed stone roof. In the inner wall of the fireplace is appointed arched window of I4th century date, which of course was built up on the formation of the fireplace, as it then looked into the flue. The east wall of the porch was pierced by an arched opening, which, later, was contracted and subsequently filled in, when a keyhole shaped window was inserted to overlook an apparently later entrance immediately to the east. This entrance has a pointed arched head. The fireplace has cupboards and a drain in the west wall. The projection had opened into a vaulted room under a pointed arch in two orders, the room being afterwards lowered to a more suitable height on the erection of the fireplace. The north wall is carried eastwards from the entrance above mentioned for a distance of 56 ½ feet, where it has returned in a southern direction. South-west of the west portion, and not in alinement with this building, is a gateway 12 ¼ feet wide with a segmental arched head. There is no visible trace of other structures.
A number of pieces of medieval glazed brick, tile, and pottery have been unearthed beside the ruin. Five of these tiles bearing raised figures of animals and eleven others bearing geometric and floral patterns are preserved in, the National Museum of Antiquities, and a selection is illustrated in the volume of Convent Charters issued for the Bannatyne Club. A residue lies within one of the vaulted cellars of the nunnery. An interesting discovery in course of excavation was a medieval brick kiln, which is situated beside the modern entrance to the property. A well on the bank above the ruins has the name of Abb's Well, and in the ground near by some lead piping was found.
HISTORICAL NOTE. This house for Cistercian nuns was founded probably in the third quarter of the 12th century, since some time before 1177 Duncan, ‘dei gratia’ Earl of Fife, confirmed a grant to the nuns by his father, Earl Duncan, of the land of ‘Gillecamestone’, otherwise ‘Gillecalmestun’, upon which the buildings of the convent were erected. This same Duncan senior had founded two hospitals, one at the north harbour of the ferry, that is at the port known as ‘Ardros’, the other at the south harbour, which was North Berwick, the name of the crossing being still preserved in Earlsferry on the Fife shore (passagium Comitis in 1303) (1); and these hospitals were granted to the nunnery by the second Earl Duncan along with certain lands in Fife and other revenues. The nuns were obliged to receive into the hospitals poor folk and pilgrims as far as the capacity of these places allowed. Later grants by Earl Duncan the second and his successor Malcolm conferred some Fife churches on the nunnery. Another benefactor was Duncan, Earl of Carrick, from whom came a revenue from land and the church of Maybole in Ayrshire. The convent also possessed estates in the immediate neighbourhood of North Berwick.
A witness to a charter of Earl Malcolm (a 1228) is James ‘prior (sic) of Noberwic’. A subprioress appears on record in 1220, a prioress and ‘master’ are in another document and a prioress and ‘master of the same nuns’ in a confirmatory grant by a Prior of St. Andrews in 1293. In 1386 Elena de Carric was prioress, but very few successors are named till we come to a succession of Hume ladies in the 16th century, when the position became virtually a perquisite of the Humes of Polwarth.
A papal bull of Clement VII, calendared in H.M. Register House and dated 4 May, 1525, confirms to Isabella Hume the priory of North Berwick with the annual rents etc. thereof not exceeding £125 on the resignation of Alison Hume the former prioress. The total valued revenue of the Convent in the thirteenth century was £815: 18 : 4 and at the Reformation £556 : 17 : 8 in money besides income in kind.
In 1539 William Fowler, chaplain of the altar of the Holy Cross, in the church of the monastery, granted to Alexander Hume his three crofts with the consent of Prioress Isabella Hume and the Convent. These eighteen ‘dames’ subscribe ‘with our hand at the pen’, as do the twenty nuns five years later who make a further grant of property to Alexander Hume, son of the late Alexander Hume of Polwarth. The names include four Humes, and others bearing such names as Halyburton, Crichton, Douglas, Sinclair, Ramsay, etc., indicating that, as usual, the inmates were probably drawn from the gentry of the district. In 1548 Margaret, the prioress, and the convent granted their principal estate at North Berwick to (her brother) Alexander Hume, brother of Patrick Hume of Polwarth, in consideration of a sum of £2000 received for the repair and rebuilding of their ‘place’ as well as for the payment of sums due by them. Other alienations to other parties followed. By 1586 ‘the place quhair the Abbay Kirk and Closter of Northberuik stuid before . . .is ruinous’ and in 1587 the temporality or other than purely ecclesiastical property of the nunnery was erected into the barony of North Berwick in favour of Alexander Hume. In 1596 Dame Margaret Hume as prioress and one nun, Dame Margaret Donaldsone, were all that remained of the conventual body, with no revenues except what came from three of the Fife churches, which, on the other hand, were required for the support of ministers. These therefore also were abandoned, and in 1597 an Act of Parliament ratified and approved of the resignation of all the Kirks and suppressed ’the said Abbacie and Monasterie for euir’.
A grant by the Archbishop of St. Andrews of the perpetual vicarage of the church of North Berwick, confirmed by Pope Clement VII. in 1529 - who alone speaks of the ‘abbess’ - had been made in consideration of its losses, due to wars in which it was plundered and its church burnt. The perils to which the monastery was thus exposed are further illustrated by the formal restoration by the prioress Dame Margaret Hume, on 14 May 1550, of valuables and vestments committed to her custody ‘in time of invasion by our old enemies of England’. These included a crucifix, apparently of silver and a silver cross with eight chalices of silver, making nine chalices with one still on pledge in the hands of Patrick Hume of Polwarth, the lady's brother, which was returned five years later. There were also four’ ornaments’ of cloth of gold, being a cope and vestments for sub-deacon, deacon and priest with all the tunicles, (in text teniculis) infulae, dalmatics, amices, albs (in text abbis) stoles and corporals pertaining thereto. To these the prioress of her own gift added two copes, one of blue velvet and another of fine green cloth (exbisso), as well as ‘a church ornament called byrd-alexander’ (i.e., of striped silk) with vestments for the three clergy as above, and another of fine white cloth ’commonly called quhit dames’, that is white damask. The convent ‘by a majority’ (per majorem partem)professed to have received all the articles transferred to the prioress for custody in time of war.
RCAHMS 1924, visited 30 April 1915.
(1) Cal. of Docts. &c. iv., p. 461. Carte Monialium de Northberwic ; Registrum de Dunfermylyn (Bannatyne Club).11. S.E.
