Kirkstead, St Mary's Chapel

NT22SE 6 25403 23676.

(NT 2540 2368) St. Mary's Chapel (NR) (Site of).

OS 6" map (1900)

Graveyard and Chapel Site, St. Mary's Chapel. This burial-ground is situated about 200 ft. above St. Mary's Loch on the left bank of a small burn which separates Copper Law from Kirkstead Hill.

It contains only one tombstone legibly dated to before 1707, a small headstone formed of a roughly squared slab, naturally split, and inscribed MEMENTO / MORY (sic) HEIR / LYS / IEAN WEALCH / WHO DYED OCTO/BER 10 DAY 1699. A few cursive letters are mixed with the more usual capitals.

A number of small uninscribed headstones, similarly made of natural rock-splinters, also occur here and may be compared with the natural boulders noted in Ettrick churchyard (RCAHMS 1957, No. 6). (Selkirk 17SE4)

Somewhere in this vicinity, and probably in the NW. corner of the enclosure, where a small heap of debris can be seen, must have stood the church of St. Mary of the Lowes, on record in 1292, which served the parish of that name, now absorbed into the parish of Yarrow.

RCAHMS 1957, visited 1946 and 1953

The burial ground and site of this chapel are as described by RCAHMS. There are no foundations to be seen.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 20 June 1962.

Scheduled as 'St Mary of the Lowes, churchyard 1200m WSW of Kirkstead... [comprises] a quadrangular walled enclosure containing a burial ground with a range of monuments... [including] burial enclosures, table tombs, headstones and rough grave markers.'

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 8 November 2000.