THE MONASTERY AT APPLEGARTH. By R. C. REID.

http://www.dgnhas.org.uk/transonline/SerIII-Vol35.pdf

  14 THE MONASTERY AT APPLEGARTH. ' By R. C. REID. The Ordnance Survey Map records at Applegarth the site of a monastery which it marks with a cross, just south of the Manse. Attention was drawn to this as long ago as 1927 and an explanation was offered.1 But the explanation was conjectural, for no medieval reference could be brought forward to support it. Now at last a reference is forthcoming.    In a document assigned by Bain circa 1215 Robert de Brus restores to Hugh, son of Ingebald, certain lands in Dryfesdale, to be held

  “ in wood and plain, land and water, monastery and mill” as his father held them before him, rendering to Brus the services of two vills and in the king’s army the service of one knight''.

  This alone is justification for the tradition. Brus held Annandale of the crown for the service of l0 knights. This knight’s fee of Hugh, son of Ingebald, must have been considerably larger than the present parish of Dryfesdale, if the whole of Annandale was divided into 10 knight’s fees. The unusual reference to a monastery in what was the stereotyped formula of a charter, is signicant. It implies that somewhere within the area covered by the grant was a site that was, or had been, a monastic establishment at one time. It is also significant that a witness to the grant Was William de Gardino, the rst known member of the Jardine family, whose association with Applegarth was only severed within recent years and whose burial mausoleum stands in Applegarth kirkyard. We may never know the boundaries of the lands gifted by Brus to Hugh, son of Ingebald, but it is suggested here that they covered both Dryfesdale and Applegarth (“ the service of two vills ” of the charter) and that at Hugh’s death Applegarth, by 1 Applrgnrth before the 13th Century, in D. and G. Trans. XIV., 158. In the Historical Monuments C0mmission’s report On Dumfriesshire it is listed under sites—-No. 50-—Mrmaster_1/, Applegarthfou-n. 2 Calendar 0/ Documents relative to Scotland,