Abbey St Bathans

Parish No 726 Abbey St Bathans is located within the County of Berwickshire, which is now known as the Scottish Borders. Abbey St Bathans sits approx. 5 miles north of Duns.  For a map of Abbey St Bathans showing its location in Berwickshire please click here.  Abbey St Bathans has no proper village.  The parish is made up of farm buildings with a mansion house, an old school and a nearby church.

The following quotation comes from the Imperial Gazeteer of Scotland edited by John Marius Wilson and published in 1868.

"The Church is a very ancient structure, with about 140 sittings. A Cisterian nunnery, with the title of a priory, was founded here, toward the close of the 12th Century, by Ada, daughter of King William the Lion, and dedicated to St Bathan, Bythen, or Bethan, who is supposed to have been a cousin of Columba and his successor at Iona; and the priory acquired large revenues, and gave name to the parish; but not a vestige of it now exists. About three furlongs east of the church, in a field which still bears the name of Chapelfield, were to be seen a number of years ago, the foundations of an ancient chapel; and about a mile to the west there existed not long since some remains of the parish church of Strafontain - probably a corruption of Trois Fontaines - united at the Reformation to St Bathan's, and originally an hospital founded by David I."

In the late 6th century there was a church dedicated to St Bathan or Bathain founded here, which will be why the parish is called Abbey St Bathans.

 

The church was made of wood and turf it is therefore believed to be one of the first buildings of its kind.

 

The present church, which is pictured below, was made smaller in the 18th century.  This church is believed to have been part of the chapel of the Cistercian Nunnery, which was founded by Ada.  Ada was the daughter of William the Lion and the wife of the Earl of Dunbar.

 

The Cistercian Nunnery was dedicated to St Mary and was founded somewhere between 1180 and 1200.  One of the Walls of the present church is believed to have been part of the Nunnery.

 

In 1296 the prioress another Ada and her nuns swore their obligation of allegiance to Edward I and after the battle of Halidon Hall in 1333 submitted to Edward thereby obtaining his protection.  The last traces of the priory disappeared in the 18th century.

 

A short distance from the church is the Holy Well or St Bathans Well.  The well is located within the grounds of the mansion house.

 

      The Church at Abbey St Bathans

Population

Here are some figures showing the Parish's population through time:

1755

80

 

1851

155

 

1921

203

1775

145

 

1861

179

 

1931

169

1801

138

 

1871

195

 

1951

149

1811

154

 

1881

250

 

1961

125

1821

150

 

1891

193

 

1971

109

1831

122

 

1901

213

 

 

 

1841

 

 

1911

229

 

 

 

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