Melrose Abbey

Founded in 1136 as the first Cistercian house in Scotland, Melrose was rebuilt repeatedly and the surviving fabric is largely late fourteenth and fifteenth century, in a French-influenced Gothic that is unusually elaborate for the Borders. The stone carving is the reason to come: gargoyles, saints, plants and a small figure of a pig playing the bagpipes, set high on the roofline, which has become the abbey's emblem. In 1921 a lead casket containing an embalmed heart was excavated from the chapter house, reburied, and re-excavated in 1998; it is generally held to be the heart of Robert the Bruce, which he asked to be taken on crusade and which was brought back. The site is exposed and roofless, with the presbytery vault the main surviving covered space. Melrose town sits immediately around it.

Highlights

• The bagpipe-playing pig - a carved figure high on the roofline.
• The elaborate carving - gargoyles, foliage and figures unusual for the Borders.
• The heart burial - the chapter house site marked where the casket was found.
• The presbytery vault - the main surviving roofed section of the church.

When to go

April to October for full opening; winter hours are shorter and parts close. Binoculars help considerably for the high carvings, which are hard to pick out with the naked eye.

What to expect

The abbey is roofless and offers no shelter. The best carvings are high up and easy to miss without magnification. The nave is largely gone, so the layout takes some reading.

Nearby

Abbotsford is a short drive; Dryburgh and Jedburgh abbeys are within the same circuit.

Key facts