Eildon Mid Hill, 'bourjo'

NT53SW 33 5485 3274

(Centred: NT 5485 3274) Bourjo (NR)

OS 6" map (1938)

'Bourjo...there is a tradition that the Druids sacrificed in the Grove of Oaks which is encompassed with a fosse and there is a wall to it from the east and west.'

R Pococke 1760

Burg-jo is believed by some to be a fortified place though no ramparts or ditches are visible. Others support the theory that the detached hillock is the result of water action - which is more probable.

Hist Berwickshire Natur Club 1907

Old Quarry; "Bourjo": The hill-face, which is here very steep, has been quarried for a length of about 180ft and to a maximum height of about 25ft; behind lie considerable piles of waste through which an extraction road descends northwards in the general direction of the Abbey (NT53SW 30). The workings appear to be of great age, and it is thus probable that this quarry was a source of some of the sandstone, particularly of the yellowish variety, that was used in the rebuilding of the abbey after 1385.

Other traces of quarrying, including one pit of some size, can be seen here and there both to the SW and to the NE of "Bourjo", and at about the same elevation or slightly higher.

RCAHMS 1956

Two large, and one small, mounds remain of the spoil from this old quarry.

Visited by OS (JLD) 11 January 1961.