Archaeologists descend on Scottish Borders village as 13th century medieval palace discovered

Archeologists and students from as far afield as Australia, America, and Canada have descended on a Borders village, to dig for what's believed to be the remains of a 13th century medieval palace.

Previous excavations on a field in Ancrum, near Jedburgh, uncovered evidence of a substantial medieval building of ‘high status’ - without establishing its purpose.

Now local residents, the Ancrum and District Heritage Society, and Harp Archaeology are undertaking a two week dig - at the site known as Mantle Walls - to try and find answers.

“All we know is high status, medieval, and big, that’s all we know.” explains Sheila Munro of the ADHS.

“We know something really significant is here and every dig we do, we get a little bit more information.”

Historical documents show that a senior Glasgow Bishop - William De Bondington - had a holiday residence in Ancrum from the 1230s until his death in 1258.

It’s believed he died there, and is buried at Melrose Abbey.

The palace is said to have entertained Scots royalty with at least three charters being signed there by Alexander II in 1236.

”There are historical documents which go back to the 12th century when land is gifted to the bishops of Glasgow,” explains Ian Hill, of Heritage and Archaeological Research Practice or HARP.

“But there's also documentation that shows that it wasn't just land, they were gifted the local church and a building either a mansion or a villa is mentioned in the Latin texts.

“The previous work has been done here by Glasgow University and they identified some architectural remains from some walls that they dated to the medieval period.

“But what they're not sure of is just how big the site was. There's differing records, there's mention of it being a bishop's palace, and there's mention in the 1700s of it being 200 yards long and 100 yards wide.

“We just really want to know definitively what was here.”

But whatever was on that field was gradually lost, as much of the collapsed walls are said to have been taken in the 17th and 18th centuries to help build the neighbouring village.

However in the 1990s Ancrum residents started taking a closer look.

Local folklore continued to locate the bishop's palace at the site, and every year a group of locals would carry out a field walk after it was ploughed, and would discover pieces of pottery and large masonry.

They then set up the ADHS to try and encourage archeologists and Historic Environment Scotland to take their findings seriously.

Thanks to their hard work, the area became a recognised site by HES in 2013 and several digs have taken place over the last 10 years.

“The dig in 2019 showed really wide walls,” said Sheila.

“I mean it's an impressive structure that would have been there, but still nothing came up to definitively say it was a bishop's palace - but we do know it's a high status building whatever it was.

“Some people are sceptical as to how far it comes but we do believe it is the length of the whole site and this was brought to light in 2021 when there was a large piece of masonry that came up in the West End which has never ever come up before, pieces like that have only ever came up in the east end.”

“It's really important to understand the links between and Ancrum and Glasgow,” said Ian.

It was clearly an important site, it was important enough that three royal charters were signed here in 1236. And so to be able to pin down exactly what these sites actually were and mean is really, really important.”

Archaeology students have come from America, Canada, and the US to take part in the project.

“We don’t have anything this old in the states,” said William Valentine from North Carolina.

“And so here I am in Scotland to get some culture, and find out a bit more about the history here.

“It’s great fun and really interesting and hopefully we find some cool stuff.”

The artefacts found so far - including some medieval pottery - will be sent of for analysis at the end of the week.

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