A Corpus of Scottish Medieval
Parish Churches

Historical outline

Dedication: St Æbbe

It is difficult to separate the history of the parish church of Coldingham from that of the Benedictine priory within which it was located from at least the late 1130s.  The lands of Coldingham had been granted to the monks of Durham in the late 1090s by Edgar, son of King Malcolm III, and a church seems to have been established there by around 1100.  It was at this place that the Durham community founded a dependent cell by about 1139 and it seems that the parish revenues of Coldingham were annexed to it perhaps from the outset.(1)  Although Ralph, prior of Durham, instructed that two chaplains should be instituted to serve the parish, one to be parochial chaplain and one to celebrate daily the office of the dead,(2) the cure of souls was from at least 1298 discharged by the priory sacristan, to whose office the vicarage had been annexed.(3)  The parish altar was located within the priory church, probably in the nave, there being reference in 1442 to ‘the parischyne within the kyrk of Coldyngham’.(4)  The parsonage remained annexed to the priory down to the Reformation, although the whole fruits of the priory had been transferred in the mid fifteenth century from Durham Priory to Dunfermline Abbey, with the cure continuing to be served by the sacristan as perpetual vicar.(5)

Notes

1. I B Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland (Scottish Record Society, 1967), 33.

2. The Correspondence, Inventories, Account Rolls and Law Proceedings of the Priory of Coldingham, ed J Raine (Surtees Society, 1841), no.CCXXXVIII [hereafter Coldingham Correspondence].

3. Coldingham Correspondence, no.CXIII.

4. Coldingham Correspondence, 141.

5. J Kirk (ed), The Books of Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices (Oxford, 1998), 198, 203-204.

Summary of relevant documentation

Medieval

Synopsis of Cowan’s Parishes: Land granted to Durham c.1098 by Edgar I. It was built c.1100, and parish revenues were annexed to the priory. It had numerous dependant chapels including Ayton.(1)

1430 Petition by John Cameron, Bishop of Glasgow on behalf of his brother Stephen Byng (monk of Dunfermline), for the sacristy of Coldingham to which the vicarage of the said place is annexed (currently detained by the prior William Drax).(2)

[No other specific references to the parish church in the papal records]

Post-medieval

Books of assumption of thirds of benefices and Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices: The Parish church parsonage with the priory of the same name, £116 6s 8d.(3)

Statistical Account of Scotland (John Renton esq of Chesterbank, 1791):‘The present kirk is dark within and shabby without’.(4)

‘The kirk was repaired about 20 years ago’.(5)

New Statistical Account of Scotland (Rev James Robertson Home, 1834): ‘The church was repaired and one of the walls rebuilt in 1662; the remaining part of the building is part of the old monastery’.(6)

Notes

1. Cowan, The parishes of medieval Scotland, 33.

2. Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1428-32, 147.

3. Kirk, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, 198 & 203-04.

4. Statistical Account of Scotland, (1791), xii, 47.

5. Statistical Account of Scotland, (1791), xii, 49.

6. New Statistical Account of Scotland, (1834), ii, 287.

Bibliography

Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1428-32, 1970, ed. A.I. Dunlop; and I.B. Cowan, (Scottish History Society) Edinburgh.

Cowan, I.B., 1967, The parishes of medieval Scotland, (Scottish Record Society), Edinburgh.

Kirk, J., 1995, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, (British Academy) Oxford.

New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1834-45, Edinburgh and London.

Statistical Account of Scotland, 1791-9, ed. J. Sinclair, Edinburgh.

Architectural description

The predecessor of Coldingham Priory(1) was the monastery of Urbs Coludi or Colodaesburg that was founded for both monks and nuns by St Aebbe at a date before 661-4, and that was located on one of the nearby coastal headlands.(2) A further pointer to early Christian activity in the area is provided by a cross fragment found nearby, and now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.(3)

The Benedictine priory at Coldingham, which was also the spiritual home of the parochial community, had its origins in a grant by King Edgar of the shire of Coldingham and other lands to the cathedral priory of Durham, in about 1098,(4) though there is not thought to have been any intention of founding a priory in making that grant. Following a disagreement, Edgar subsequently withdrew part of the grant, and Durham’s possessions in Berwickshire and Lothian were to be a cause of regular litigation.

Nevertheless, a church at Coldingham was built soon after the grant of 1098, with Edgar present at its dedication in about 1100. Durham outstationed monks at the church to look after its interests, together with a chaplain, and eventually a second chaplain in 1214 to serve the needs of the local community. The first specific reference to a prior was in about 1147,(5) and it was perhaps only shortly before then that a priory of monks from Durham had taken corporate form.

The vicarage of the parish had come to be annexed to the priory’s sacristanship by the later thirteenth century.(6) It is assumed that parochial worship was located in the nave, of which nothing now remains. Any possible architectural implications of abortive proposals to establish a secular college to replace the Benedictine priory in 1473 are unclear.(7)

The church that was dedicated in about 1100 can presumably be associated with a structure of which foundations have been found beneath the later choir and crossing area. So far as the surviving choir of the priory church is concerned, the frequently reiterated statement that it was built after a raid by the forces of King John of England in 1216(8) must be unacceptable, though that raid certainly may have interrupted operations.

A more attractive starting date on stylistic grounds would be 1188, when the Aberdeen Breviary, published in 1510, says that St Aebbe appeared in a vision to a monk named Henry, ordering that he should build an oratory for her.(9) It must be conceded that the Breviary is a generally unreliable source on such matters, though it certainly appears that work was in progress at that time, because Bertram, who was prior of Durham from 1189 to 1212, is recorded as encouraging donations towards the construction.(10)

It is particularly difficult to know when anything of the church other than the choir was built, since nothing remains visible of the aisled nave or north transept, while the evidence of the fragmentary remains of the south transept is vitiated by excessive rebuilding. However, it will be seen that construction of the chapels on the east side of the north transept must have involved modifications to work erected in the first building phase of the choir. This suggests that, on completion of the choir, there was a brief pause before work continued with the rest of the building, though resumption of work seems likely to have been within the first decades of the thirteenth century.

Considerable works are recorded on the priory church in the mid-fourteenth century.In 1344 timber was purchased for re-roofing the church, and plumbers were at work on the guttering;(11) There were further works on the roof in 1353-5.(12) Over the decade from 1362 further signifiant operations were in progress, that includeed work on roofs, windows and walls, while reairs were also required to the transept gables.(13) Some re-furnishing was evidently also entailed, with images of the Resurrection and St Blaise being bought in 1369-70, and of the Virgin in 1371-2.(14)

It is of particular interest that in 1363-4 the highly esteemed English master mason John Lewyn was sent from Durham to Coldingham. It is not clear, however, what resulted from that visit,(15) and nothing remains identifiable of the mid-fourteenth-century operations.

Coldingham had a particularly troubled later history, which must certainly have had implications for the fabric, though there is no way of knowing what these were when so much has been lost. In 1378 Robert II determined that the priory should become dependent on Scotland’s senior Benedictine house at Dunfermline rather than on Durham, and a long period of conflict ensued. The bitterness this created is illustrated in Scotichronicon’s account of Prior William Drax’s willingness to fire the church in about 1420 rather than give shelter to Scottish refugees.(16)

The last century of the priory’s history was further clouded by struggles over the offices of  prior and baillie, with conflicts not only between the powerful local families of Home and Hepburn, but even between branches of the Home family itself; there were later struggles between the Home and Douglas families from 1519 to 1528.(17) Adding a further degree of complication, in 1473 James III attempted to have the priory refounded as a Chapel Royal, though this scheme foundered on the king’s death in 1488.

The priory suffered badly during the later phases of the wars with England. It possibly escaped the burning of Coldingham town in October 1532, but it was burnt by the earl of Hertford in November 1542, and the priory buildings, though apparently not the church, was again burnt in June 1544. It was the turn of the Scots to besiege it from November 1544 to February 1545, at a time that it was held by the English, and there was more destruction in Hertford’s later campaign of August 1545.

The church was attacked by Cromwell’s troops in 1648, though it is not known how much was standing by that date, and whether or not the parish had already taken over the choir as its place of worship. However, the eastern limb was certainly repaired for the church in 1661-2 by the mason George Wilson, younger, of Canongate, with the involvement of the royal master mason John Mylne.(18) Galleries were subsequently inserted.

Views of 1789 in Grose’s Antiquities of Scotland show the south and west walls as rebuilt in 1661, with heavily rusticated doorways, and shuttered windows possibly of Serlian type. There was also a tall bellcote of uncertain date rising from a buttress at the centre of the west wall. Church records indicate regular works of maintenance, with repairs to the roofs in 1694, further repairs and re-seating in 1770, re-roofing in 1808, the creation of a west vestibule in 1821, and the paving of the central area with Arbroath flags in 1831.(19)

A major restoration of the choir was carried out in 1854-7, involving reconstruction of the south and west walls, removal of post-Reformation galleries and lowering of both internal and external ground levels. Thomas Hamilton was first commissioned to produce designs, (perhaps as early as 1851), and drawings of 1851 and 1852 by Robert Matheson, Clerk of Works to the Office of Works, also survive.(20) After advice was sought from William Burn, the work was entrusted to the local architect William Johnston Gray with Balfour Balsillie as mason. The work cost £2,200, of which £625 was contributed by the government.

Gray’s surviving drawings illustrate several alternative schemes, including proposals for a south transeptal aisle, an aisle running along much of the south flank, and a west vestibule, but a rectangular plan, reflecting the plan of the medieval choir, was eventually adopted, albeit eith the addition of a south porch. Most recently, there was a re-ordering of the interior by Gordon and Dey in 1952, when the main focus of worship became a communion table at the east end rather than the pulpit against the south wall.

So far as the structural remains are concerned,(21) the earliest evidence for a church on the site was located through excavations in 1854-5, in advance of restoration. Although there must be some uncertainty over the details of what was found, these revealed what were probably the foundations of part of the church dedicated in 1100, and it was recorded that they took the form of an elongated aisle-less structure, only a little smaller than the later choir, with a semi-circular east apse.

There was a narrower square compartment at its west end, which was evidently intended as a central tower, the west wall of which was on the line of the west wall of the later crossing. The consolidated remains of this tower are still to be seen, and from the base of the south respond it can be seen that the west arch jambs had a massive semi-circular axial shaft attached to a rectangular core and flanked by smaller half shafts.

A displaced cushion capital, now built in with a display of stones against the west wall of the south transept presumably comes from structures associated with this first church. Within the area of the earlier crossing, are simple inscribed tomb stones to Priors Radulf and Ernald, successively priors of the house between about 1203 and 1211.(22) No evidence appears to have been found through excavation of a nave contemporary with this tower, and it is possible that none was built at that time.

The church which replaced that first building was presumably the one for which Prior Bertram of Durham was encouraging donations. It had a rectangular aisle-less choir of eight tightly spaced bays, and this is now the only part to stand to full height; there may have been a sacristy of secondary construction against part of its north flank.

West of the choir were transepts with space for three chapel bays on the east side of each, the chapels being slightly inset from the transept gables. Limited excavations in the nineteenth century suggested that the nave was about 39 metres long and had an aisle along each flank; some published plans show it as divided by buttresses into six bays, though it is not clear if there is any firm basis for this.

There are references to a tower rising to about 27.5 metres at the north-west corner of the north transept, said variously to have been destroyed by Cromwell or to have fallen around the late eighteenth century, but there can be no certainty about that, and it may be that the tower was in fact either over the crossing or was a substantial stair turret at the south-east corner of the south transept, of which slight remains have been located.

Externally the east and north walls of the choir are constructed of finely jointed high quality red sandstone ashlar. The east face is divided into three narrow bays by buttresses, and has square turrets of relatively wide projection, with pronounced angle rolls, at the corners. Along the lower level of this face is decorative blind arcading, with two attenuated arches to each bay, rising from a quirked and chamfered string course, which is itself above a multi-chamfered base course.

The detailing throughout is highly refined, with slender twin shafts at the centre of each pair of blind arches that rest on a projection of the string course carried on a small corbel. The diminutive shaft caps are of waterleaf type and the round arches have two orders of chevron decoration.

If the decoration of the lower storey is late Romanesque in character, at the upper level it is pronouncedly early Gothic. This suggests that there could have been a slight pause between two phases of building which might perhaps be associated with the attack by English forces in 1216. The lancet windows piercing the upper stage, one to each bay, rise from a string course which steps up below each window. The window arches are framed by fine mouldings with a keeled roll as the leading feature, which are carried on en-délit shafts with heavy shaft rings at mid-height. Most of the bases of these shafts have pellet decoration, and the capitals are of a variety of crocket and stiff leaf forms. The pyramidal capping of the angle turrets and the coping of the low east gable date from the restoration of 1854-7, and are unlikely to reflect the original forms.

The north flank of the choir is eight bays long, with the west bay, which corresponds with the chapel aisle on the east side of the north transept, being wider than the others. The design of this flank is broadly similar to the east face, but without chevron decoration to the wall arcading at the lower level.

At the upper level of the wider west bay there is now a simple lancet in the east part, while at the lower level there are two pointed arches of blind arcading within what was the area of the transept chapels. These lower arches clearly represent a secondary modification, and we must be grateful that the architectural evidence was not disturbed as a result of a rejected suggestion in 1855 that they should be replaced by arches uniform with those further east was not acted upon.(23)

An inserted small arched recess in the third bay from the east, which could be a piscina, may indicate there has been a sacristy of secondary construction against this flank, while an internal elevation drawing of the choir of June 1851 suggests there may have been a doorway into it in the fourth bay from the east.

The south and west elevations in their present form date entirely from the 1850s, albeit presumably incorporating masonry of the 1661 rebuilding. The south elevation has a two-storeyed square porch of the 1850s west of its centre point, with a vestry on its upper floor, and the gable is capped by a bellcote. Otherwise this face is plain, with little more than a simple sequence of lancet windows above a stepped string course. The west elevation, which is also of the 1850s, is a close copy of the east elevation.

Internally – as externally - the only parts that preserve the medieval design are the east and north walls. They can be seen to belong within a northern English and Scottish tradition of aisle-less designs which perhaps started with Archbishop Roger of Pont l’Eveque of York’s works in the nave of Ripon Minster of around the 1170s, and continued on a smaller scale in the nave of Nun Monkton Benedictine Nunnery Church and in the choir of St Bees Benedictine Priory Church. Within Scotland, the rebuilt presbytery of Jedburgh Abbey may also have belonged within this tradition. The main features of this approach to design are an unfenestrated lower wall, and an upper stage (or two upper stages in the case of Ripon nave, and of Jedburgh presbytery in its final stage) with windows, a mural passage and enriched open arcading towards the interior at that level.

The lower stage at Coldingham has a wall arcade of pointed arches with keeled mouldings, between the heads of which are sunk foiled figures or vesicae. In its present form this arcading is heavily restored; indeed, it was only in 1855, when the internal ground level was lowered by about 1.4 m, that the bases were rediscovered and it came to be appreciated that the arches had been carried on shafts rather than corbels.

The upper stage has an arcade of pointed arches on the inner face of the wall passage. Tall arches correspond to the windows while there are shorter arches in front of the unpierced sections of wall; the upper parts of the tall arches rise from engaged shafts resting on the abaci of the shorter arch capitals. Along the east wall there is now a simple alternation of one short arch between each tall arch, though there are the stumps of what appear to have been paired sub-arches within the lower arches. Along the north wall there are two of the shorter arches between each of the higher ones, except at the west end, where there are three shorter arches. There is no correspondence of rhythm between the wall arcading of the lower stage and the open arcading of the upper stage.

The capitals of the upper arcading, all of which have square abaci, are one of the most important groupings of early Gothic foliage types in Scotland, and are of a significance comparable with the capitals of the north nave aisle wall of Holyrood Abbey of around 1195. The combination of waterleaf, crocket and stiff leaf forms of varying degrees of complexity, and in no obvious chronological sequence, richly deserves careful observation. The piers supporting these capitals have clusters of five engaged shafts with the leading one keeled, except for those between the pairs of shorter arches, which have paired shafts separated by a spur. The pier bases are of water-holding form.

Of the arcading which used to run along the south wall, only the upper shafts at the east end survived rebuilding, this wall being now essentially of the 1850s. The rebuilt west wall has a simplified version of the two levels of arcading of the east and north walls, albeit without the wall passage. Also dating from the 1850s is the flat ribbed ceiling, with arched braces at the junction of the transverse ribs with the side walls. Alternative proposals for a more steeply pitched open-timber roof had been rejected.

The only other part of the church of which there are upstanding remains is the south transept, and what remains of that has been extensively rebuilt. The piers opening into the three-bay chapel aisle were unusual in their elongation along the east-west axis: towards the main space of the transept was a spaced pair of round shafts, while there was a triplet of round shafts to north and south that would have supported the arcade arches; on the east side of the piers was a cluster of five closely spaced shafts, presumably designed to support the ribs of vaulting over the chapel aisle.

The opening into the transept from the south nave aisle had a moulded round arch carried on responds with triplets of shafts, and with an order of dogtooth towards the transept. Internally, the south and west walls of the transept had pointed decorative arcading at the lower level, carried on single engaged shafts, the one surviving capital of which was of waterleaf type. Nothing remains of the upper parts of the transept. At the south-east corner of the transept a stair turret of generous proportions has been found through excavation.

The north transept has entirely disappeared, apart from the arches of the decorative arcading of its south-east chapel where it ran along the outer face of the west bay of the choir. The way in which this arcading overlays the plinth and arcading of the choir as first built, and the pronounced filleting rather than keeling of the main element of the arches, suggests that, whatever plans there may have been for transepts when the choir was started, there was no initial intention that they should have east chapels in the positions that they were eventually built. These chapels in their present form were therefore an afterthought.

Drawings made before demolition of the arcade opening from the north transept into its east chapels suggest that those arches rose no higher than the decorative arcading at the lower level of the choir exterior and that they were supported by rectangular piers and responds with angle rolls, rather than by piers of more orthodox type.(24) There were presumably three north transept chapels, as in the south transept, and there was an arch to each, separated by a lower blind arch; however, the drawing suggests that the middle of the three chapel arches may have been blocked by the time the survey was made.(25)

Notes

1. This account takes a lead from Richard Fawcett’s entry on the priory in Kitty Cruft, John Dunbar and Richard Fawcett, The Buildings of Scotland, Borders, New Haven and London, 2006, pp. 176-81.

2. Simon Stronach, ‘The Anglian Monastery and Medieval Priory of Coldingham: Urbs Coludi Revisited’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. 135, 2005, pp. 395-422.

3. J. Romilly Allen and Joseph Anderson, The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1903, pt 3, p. 429.

4. J. Raine, The History and Antiquities of North Durham, London, 1852, nos ix and iv; Early Scottish Charters Prior to 1153, ed. A.C. Lawrie, Glasgow, 1905, no xv.

5. Registrum de Dunfermelyn, ed. Cosmo Innes, (Bannatyne Club), 1842, no 4; Ian B. Cowan and David E, Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, Scotland, London and new York, 2nd ed. 1976, pp. 55-58.

6. Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland, (Scottish Record Society), 1967, p. 33.

7. Cowan and Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 216.

8. Chronica de Mailros, ed. Joseph Stevenson, (Bannatyne Club), 1835, p. 122.

9. Breviarium Aberdonense, ed. William Blew, (Bannatyne Club), 1853, vol.1, fols 87v and 88r.

10. Robert Bartlett, The Miracles of St Aebbe of Coldinghamd and St Margaret of Scotland, Oxford, 2003, p. xxii.

11. The Correspondence, Inventories, Account Rolls and Law Proceedings of the Priory of Coldingham, ed. John Raine, (Surtees Society), 1841, p. cvi.

12. Correspondence of Coldingham, apps xxvii-xxix.

13. Correspondence of Coldingham, apps xli-lxiv.

14. Correspondence of Coldingham, apps lxi and lxiv.

15. Correspondence of Coldingham, app. xliv; John Harvey, English Medieval Architects, a Biographical Dictionary Down to 1550, rev. ed, Gloucester, 1984, p. 181.

16. Scotichronicon by Walter Bower, ed. D.E.R. Watt et al., Aberdeen and Edinburgh, vol. 6, 1991, p. 67.

17. Norman Nacdougall, ‘The Struggle for the Priory of Coldingham, 1472-88’, Innes Review, vol. 23, 1972, pp. 102-114.

18. National Records of Scotland, Register of Deeds, Dal. 7, 223, Warrant no 1930; Scottish History Society Miscellany, vol. 11, 1990, pp. 281-84.

19. A. Thomson, Coldingham Parish and Priory, Galashiels, 1908.

20. National Records of Scotland, RHP 6506/1-8; MW/1/553 (Advice on repairs, 1851-55).

21. Accounts of the architecture of the priory will be found in: William Brockie, A Brief Sketch of the History of the Priory of Coldingham, Kelso, 1886; David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, Edinburgh, vol. 1, 1896, pp. 437–48; Thomson, Coldingham Priory; Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Berwicksire, Edinburgh 1915, pp. 35–43; W. Douglas Simpson, ‘Coldingham Priory: a famous Border Monastery’, Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, vol. 9, 1939, pp. 69-86; Cruft, Dunbar and Fawcett, Buildings of Scotland, Borders, pp. 176-81.

22. D.E.R. Watt and N.F. Shead, The Heads of Religious Houses in Scotland from Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries, (Scottish Record Society), 2001, p. 30.

23. National Records of Scotland, MW/1/553 (Advice on repairs, 1851-55), letter from David Milne Home of 28 July, 1855.

24. National Records of Scotland, RHP 6506/2.

25. This is shown on one of the drawings of 1855 by William Gray held by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.