Moorfoot

NT25SE 1 2985 5229

(NT 2985 5229) Moorfoot Chapel (NR)

(In Ruins) Graveyard (NR)

OS 25" map (1905-6)

Moorfoot was granted to Newbattle Abbey by David I (1124- 56) (G Chalmers 1888) and there are references to the "Grange of Morthweth" (Reg Newbotle 1849).

Carrick identified the published remains as a chapel belonging to Newbattle Abbey, and suggested that Moorfoot farmhouse and outbuildings is largely a reconstruction of the ancient monastic grange (J L Carrick 1907). RCAHMS also classified the ruins as a chapel, dating it probably from the 13th C.

RCAHMS 1929, visited 1915.

The remains of the monastic grange are erroneously published as "Moorfoot Chapel and Graveyard". Robbed mouldings built into the present farmhouse presumably led Carrick to suppose that it incorporated remains of the monastic grange.

In typical fashion the grange buildings are laid out around a courtyard some 30m square, and generally survive as footings only. The domestic quarters occupy the S side of the couryard and comprise three rooms, probably the hall, kitchen and chamber, but insufficient detail survives for accurate identification without excavation. Walling of mortared random rubble, varying between 0.95 - 1.1m in thickness, remains to a maximum height of 1.4m in the N and S walls of the eastermost compartment. The courtyard is trisected by an E-W wall, but whether this is of a building or enclosure is uncertain. The northern range of buildings comprise a substantial square structure at the NW corner, probably a gatehouse, and extending eastwards the footings of two other buildings are traceable, (? barn, brewhouse, bakehouse, etc). The E wall of the courtyard has been eroded by the river which has changed course considerably since the last revision. To the N there is a substantial L-shaped earthwork, evidently a floodbank and possibly contemporary with the grange.

Revised at 25".

Visited by OS (JP), 3 March 1970.