Publication Account
Date 1951
Event ID 1096126
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1096126
213. Chapel of St. Roque, Burgh Muir.
The chapel of St. Roque, or St. Roche, stood in the S.W. part of the Burgh Muir; its site is now within the grounds of Canaan House, S. of Grange Loan. The earliest reference to it is in 1507, when James IV paid it a visit (1); and it was probably built a few years earlier - perhaps by Richard Hopper, who endowed an altar dedicated in the name of St. Roque in St. Giles' Church in 1502 (2). Grose's illustration (3) indicates that the chapel consisted of a nave and a chancel, equal in width. The former, entered from the S. and lit by a large, arched window in the W. gable, opened into the latter by an obtusely pointed chancel-arch, which was built up at some later period.
St. Roque's has always been termed a chapel, except in a charter of 1532 which requires the chaplain to keep his ‘kirk’ water-tight and to pray for those who ‘lyis in the said kirk and kirkyard’ (4). As, however, it was not actually a church, and as chantry chapels had not the right of sepulture, it is reasonable to infer that St. Roque's primary function was to serve as a hospital chapel, in which capacity it would have been entitled to maintain a grave-yard. On the other hand, as feuing began on the Burgh Muir soon after 1490 (5), St. Roque's may have been a chapel-of-ease for new residents in this neighbourhood and may have received the right of sepulture in virtue of this fact. However this may be, it was the nucleus of the town's first isolation-hospital, as from as early as 1530 persons suffering from the plague were kept there, probably in wooden huts built round about the chapel (6). Plague patients were still there in 1585 (7), but in1645 they were at Sciennes in the N.E. part of the Burgh Muir (8). The structure was derelict in 1789, when Grose's illustration was prepared, and it was finally demolished in 1791.
RCAHMS 1951, notes contributed by C A Malcolm
(1) Accts. L.H.T., iii, p. 293. (2) Reg. Cart. St. Egid., p. 185. (3) The Antiquities of Scotland, i, facing p. 38. (4) B.R., 1528-1557, p. 59. (5) B.R., 1403-1528, p. 58. (6) B.R., 1528-1557, p. 45. (7) B.R., 1573-1589, p. 416. (8) B.R., 1642-1655, pp. 71 f. It is only in this case that wooden huts are mentioned specifically.
