Archaeology Notes

Event ID 716552

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/716552

NT49NE 3 48091 99392

(NT 4809 9939) Chapel (NR) (rems of)

OS 6" map (1971)

Wood alleges that this ruin is that of a hospital and Easson notes Ardross Hospital, at Earlsferry, the N end of the ferry from North Berwick, for the poor and travellers, founded in 1154 by Duncan, fourth Earl of Fife, and granted by Duncan, fifth Earl, to the nuns of North Berwick (D E Easson 1957). Wood adds that there was probably a chapel and cemetery attached to this hospital as the earth around it is full of human bones.

The RCAHMS consider the ruins to be those of a chapel, oriented E-W and measuring 43'2" x 18'11" externally. Only the E gable (2'9" thick) and the earlier end of the S wall (2' 4 1/2" thick) remain, the other walls being reduced to their foundations. There seems to have been a small enclosure on the N side. A modern panel set in the gable states that the chapel was built by MacDuff, Earl of Fife, in 1093 and repaired in 1830.

W Wood 1887; RCAHMS 1933.

The remains of the chapel are as described. The remains to the N may be those of a building but are too vague to classify.

Visited by OS (JP) 30 May 1974.

Site recorded by Maritime Fife during the Coastal Assessment Survey for Historic Scotland, Kincardine to Fife Ness 1996.