Archaeology Notes

Event ID 683027

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/683027

NO12SW 63.00 1124 2293

(NO 1124 2293) Supposed Site of St Leonard's Chapel, Nunnery and Hospital (NR)

OS 1:500 map, Perth, 1863.

NO12SW 63.01 NO 1135 2282 Watching Brief

For Perth (General) Station (NO 11220 23139), see NO12SW 192.

In 1608 victims of the plague were buried at St. Leonards.

NSA (written by W Thomson, 1837) 1845.

The site pointed out is by tradition to be the immediate vicinity of St Leonard's Cottage formerly a farm house, called St Leonards; A plan of Perth dated 1792 shows the site immediately on the east side of St Leonard's Cottage, and of late years human bones have been dug up in considerable quantities at a short distance from this supposed site.

Information from 'Plan of Perth' 1792; New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845; D Peacocke 1849; OS Name Book 1860.

The Leonard institution occupied a Nunnery an Hospital, and a Chapel, and was ruled by a Prioress. In 1296, the Prioress swore fealty to Edward I of England. By a grant of James I (1406-1437) the priory was transferred to the Carthusian Monastry and in 1438 was suppressed, but the Chapel was used up to the Reformation, when it shared the fate of an other ecclesiastical building.

R S Fittes 1885.

Many long cist burials were found at Perth a few years ago, in an extension of the general railway station there, and were supposed to have belonged to the burial ground of a nunnery which once occupied a site in that neighbourhood.

A Hutcheson 1903.

The Augustinian Nus, Perth, St Leonard, that house is specifically mentioned as Augustinian is a papal letter 5 February 1292/3.

D E Easson 1957.

NO 113 228. A watching brief (by SUAT) on the site of a former engine shed near St Leonard's Chapel revealed modern infilling over a dark garden or plough soil. Two sherds of medieval pottery and one piece of daub were recovered from the dark soil deposit. The site indicated that there is a good possibility of finding evidence of St Leonard's Chapel surviving in the former ground surface beneath the railway bedding.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland.

R Cachart 1993.