St Helen's Church (Old Cambus)
The 1936 under protection St Helen's Church in Old Cambus (also called St Helen-on-Lea or Aldcambus Scottish-Gaelic Allt-camus - German "Strom der Bucht" ) is a church ruin with a rectangular floor plan of the nave and choir , which clearly shows narrower than the ship is. The church is located near the North Sea in the Scottish Borders in Berwickshire in Scotland and dates mostly from the 12th century with changes from the 15th century.
description
The remains consist of a nave measuring 10.6 × 5.3 m and a choir measuring 4.7 × 3.4 m. The east and south walls of the choir survive only on the ground, while the north wall is still 3.0 to 4.0 m high. Parts of the north and south walls of the ship are 1.0 to 2.0 m high. At the western ends of the north and south walls, rough openings can indicate the position of portals. The south wall contains the remains of two arched depressions that may have been burial niches. The west gable is almost completely preserved. The choir and nave presumably had a barrel vault . The south wall of the nave was later thickened on the inside, which raises the question of whether a cantilever vault was part of the building. Early drawings of the surviving parts of the structure indicate that the choir had arched capitals, an ornate cornice, and a simply notched east window. The posts of the choir consisted of a central half-roll, which was flanked on both sides by smaller ones. The west wall of the nave has several stones decorated with shells.
history
Around 1098 Aldcambus (and other places) was given to the church of St Cuthbert in Durham by Étgar mac Maíl Choluim or Edgar Ætheling . But there is no mention of a church in any of the early documents. The first mention of the church appears around 1200 when Roger de Beaumont, Bishop of St. Andrews, gave the Durham Priory several churches in the Diocese of St. Andrews, including Aldcambus. By 1556 the church seems to have been in a precarious state. In 1610 the parish of Aldcambus was attached to that of Cockburnspath. Probably before 1750 the church was already in ruins. Decorated areas of the church remained until 1848 and were drawn by Thomas S. Muir, but were soon destroyed. By this time, the soil in and around the church had risen considerably and excavations were carried out in the early 20th century to discover the floor plan features. Since then, the vegetation has covered most of the remaining stones.
Hogbacks
The cemetery contains a number of funerary monuments, most of which are south of the church. Of note are two fragments of a hogback and an intact hogback. The intact hogback has one side that is divided into three parts, showing an animal at a time, while the other side, with three rows of clapboards, is extremely worn. The fragmentary hogback is decorated similarly. Carvings of animals can be seen on one side and rows of semicircular roof tiles on the other. Both probably date from the 11th century.
literature
- JT Lang: Hogback monuments in Scotland , Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 105, 1975 p 231.
- TS Muir: Notice of the ancient church of St. Helen at Aldcambus, and of fragments apparently of a monastic building at Luffness , Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., 3, 1862.
- R. Fawcett: Scottish medieval churches: architecture and furnishings. Stroud 2002.
Web links
Coordinates: 55 ° 55 ′ 43.3 " N , 2 ° 18 ′ 56.2" W.
