Edrom Church

In the churchyard at Edrom, 3.5 miles north-east of Duns, a richly carved Norman arch is all that survives of the church built here in the 1100s. In 1139 Gospatrick, Earl of Dunbar, granted the parish to the monks of St Cuthbert at Durham, and the church was probably built soon after, part of the network of parishes spreading across Scotland under David I. The arch was probably the main doorway, though it may have been a chancel arch. When the church was rebuilt in 1732 it was reused as the entrance to a burial vault, and it now stands set into the vault's gable behind the parish church. It is a round-headed arch of several orders carved with chevrons, and its finest features are the capitals, where heads at the angles have trails of foliage spouting from their mouths, close to the carving of Dunfermline Abbey's south-east doorway and perhaps the work of the same mason. The arch is free to see at any time, with parking available.