History of Old Melrose (“Mail Ros”)

The site was founded by King Oswald of Northumbria, this area being within the old kingdom of Northumbria. Oswald had spent much of his youth on Iona and was a Christian and he wanted to bring the Christian message to the lands where he was King between 633 and 642 AD.

He invited St Aidan and 12 monks from Iona to travel to Northumbria and St Aidan first established “Mail Ros” before setting off further to establish a monastic community on the Holy Island. One of the monks was St Boisil and he became the 2nd Prior of the “Mail Ros” monastery. On the death of St Aidan 651-652AD Cuthbert had a vision of Heaven and he travelled to “Mail Ros” and became a monk under the guidance of St Boisil, whom he then succeeded as the 3rd Prior.

The name Melrose is thought to be derived from “Mail Ros”, this meaning “Bare headland” and was the description of the peninsula of land surrounded by the Tweed on three sides and separated from the rest of the land by the Earthen Vallum. At the time of the early monks the headland would have had few trees, hence the description “bare”.

A monastic Vallum was typically a deep ditch or series of ditches that enclosed an early Christian monastery. They were common in northern Britain and Ireland in the 5th to 9th centuries. The Vallum served several purposes. It would have provides some defensive protection as well as helping to keep in the monastic livestock. It was also important symbolically to remind all that the monastery was a sacred, holy place, separated from the secular world.

The Old Melrose monastery was burned to the ground in 839 by order of Kenneth MacAlpine, it was subsequently rebuilt and became one of the temporary resting points for the body of St Cuthbert. By 1073 the site was again in ruins and monks never returned for any period of time to this location. A chapel dedicated to St Cuthbert was however still in place on what is called “Chapelknowe” and this was a place of pilgrimage over the centuries.

King David I is said to have had a castle on the west side of the Earthen Vallum overlooking the peninsula and in 1130 he granted the land to the Cistercian monks of Rievaulx. The monks arrived but indicated that they preferred to establish their monastery not at “Mail Ros” but 2 mile west at what is now the location of Melrose Abbey. King David granted this move along with the monks request that they should be allowed to still use the name “Mail Ros”, hence the reason for Melrose’s present name and that of the Peninsula land being called Old Melrose.

Walking Support May 2014