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Field Visit
Date 28 September 1914
Event ID 1114564
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1114564
Holy Trinity Church and Hospital (O.S. ‘Soutra Aisle’).
On the crest of Soutra Hill, almost 2 miles south-south-east of Fala, stood the Holy Trinity Hospital, now represented by a low oblong structure which measures externally 25 feet 5 inches from north to south and 23 feet 6 inches from east to west, and is covered with an outer stone roof over a barrel-vault. The wall-head is now 4 feet from the ground. The walls are built of coursed rubble. In the centre of the west gable is a lintelled doorway, 3 feet wide and 4 feet 2 inches high, with a bold bead-and-quirk moulding worked on the architrave and lintel; the hollow of the quirk is enriched with the nail-head ornament. Immediately over the lintel is an oblong stone, on which are incised in letters 6 inches high the initials D.P. for David Pringle, and A.P. (mischievously altered to R) (1) for Agnes Pringle, his wife, with the date 1686. A two-light pointed headed window with a mullion 15 inches broad is set above this stone. A 2-inch splay is worked on the jambs and heads; the window is 3 feet high, and each light is 9 ½ inches wide, the heads being formed each from a single stone. The sills are 5 feet 7 inches from the present ground level. A square-headed window is set in the centre of the east wall above the wallhead level. It is 12 inches wide and 3 feet high; a splay is worked around the jambs and lintel. The north and south walls are blank. The openings are now built up, so that access to the interior cannot be obtained. Under the turf there are traces of either debris or foundations for 20 feet east of the building and for a considerable distance westwards.
HISTORICAL NOTE. SOLTRA. The hospital or ‘house’ (domus) of ‘Soltre’, including a church, is said to have been founded by Malcolm IV (1153-1165) in or before 1164 as an hospice for travellers (coenobium de Soltrey ad viatores hospitandos) (2): its earliest charter is of a grant of land by this Malcolm to ‘the Hospital of the Holy Trinity of Soutra’. The fratres observed the canonical rule of St Augustine, and were presided over by a magister. The hospital had in property, by donation, four churches besides lands and revenues in East Lothian, Berwickshire, etc., and considerable house property in Haddington, Leith, North Berwick, Duns, etc., all of which were appropriated to the new foundation of Trinity College, Edinburgh, by a Papal Bull dated 1460 and promulgated in 1462 (3). The Pringles, who were lairds of Soutra, later adapted ‘ane Isle of the Abbace’, as it is described by Father Hay in his MS. of 1700, to be a family burial place, which is now all that remains of the Hospital buildings and church. The ‘testament’ or will of David Pringle of ‘Soutray’ was registered on 24th June 1686 (4). On the ancient road known as the ‘Girthgate’, which passed close by the Hospital, see Inventory, County of Berwick (1915), No. 35.
RCAHMS 1929, visited 28 September 1914.
(1) Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., lviii (1923-4), p. 308; (2) Scotich., Lib. vii, Cap. vii; (3) Charters of Collegiate Churches in Midlothian; (4) Reg. of Test. Edinb. (Scottish Record Soc.).
