Archaeology Notes

Event ID 717534

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/717534

NT60SW 5 6047 0008 and 6045 0015.

(NT 6047 0008) Church (NR) (rems of)

(Name: NT 6045 0015) Wheel Village (NR) (site of)

OS 6"map, (1964).

Wheel Church presumably took its name from the adjacent medieval village known as Le Whele in 1296. Neither church nor village exists today. The site of the church was explored in 1914 by some members of Hawick Archaeological Society who found that the building had consisted of a nave and chancel, both rectangular and measuring over all 34' by 24' and 23' by 18' respectively. The type of plan, taken in conjunction with a fragment of hood-mould bearing dog-tooth enrichment (now in Hawick Museum) and the rounded head of a window only 5" wide, suggested a building of about 1170. Latterly, if not originally, the church belonged to Jedburgh Abbey; but it does not come on record until 1347, when the hospital or free chapel "del Whele" in Scotland is granted with other benefices by Edward III to William de Emeldon. At some date after the Reformation the church was abandoned, though "The Whele Kirk" still appears on Blaeu's map of 1648; it subsequently fell into decay and became a source of material for stone dykes in the neighbourhood. The tomb-stones in the churchyard had all disappeared by the middle of the 19th C.

RCAHMS 1956, visited 1932; G Watson 1914; J P Alison 1917.

There is no trace of this church at the site indicated on the OS map of 1925, but about 103m ENE of the NE corner of the sheepfold are the footings of the building described as being the church. It measures 12.0m x 6.0m and is now a turf bank 0.7m high. The enclosure adjoining this building on its NW side (? the graveyard) is 20.0m x 15.0m, and a small structure, 8.0m x 5.0m, formed by a turf bank, adjoins the building on the SW side. No trace of "Wheel Village" remains, but in the area are a number of field enclosures an quarry-pits, probably associated with a farm of which the previously described building may have been the farmstead. In the N half of the modern sheepfold are the remains of a rectangular foundation, 13.0m x 5.0m, with an L-shaped bank extending from its NE corner.

Visited by OS(WDJ) 7 October 1960.

These remains have been fragmented by deep ploughing and afforestation, and no longer recognizable as a church or farmstead.

Revised at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS(TRG) 22 September 1976.