The weather was foul, but YHS had a relatively dry pitch for our stall at the Yetholm Shepherds Show on Saturday 7th October. As well as selling books and advertising our events, we had a 'What's that Thing?' competition in which visitors had to identify varoius moderately enigmatic objects in our collection. Prize winners to be contacted shortly. One of the posters which we used is shown below.
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St Ethelreda, c. 636 – 23 June 679 AD, (also sometimes Etheldreda or Æthelthryth or Æðelþryð or Æþelðryþe – or, more usually, just plain Audrey) was an East Anglian princess, whose main claim to sanctity was that, although married twice, she was determined to remain a virgin and to live as a nun. Her second marriage was to Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria. Ecgfrith initially agreed Ethelreda should continue to remain a virgin, but about 672 he appealed to Bishop Wilfrid for the enforcement of his marital rights as against Ethelreda's religious vocation. The bishop succeeded at first in persuading the king to consent that Etheldreda should live for some time in peace as a sister of the Coldingham nunnery, founded by his aunt, Æbbe of Coldingham. Eventually, in light of the danger of being forcibly carried off by the king, Ethelreda fled back to the Isle of Ely with two nuns as companions. There she founded a monastery and lived the usual austere life (rough clothes, infrequent bathing etc). She died of a neck tumour, said to a punishment for her former love of fancy clothes and jewels while a young princess. After death her body remained uncorrupted and many people visited her shrine for healing, particularly if they suffered from illnesses of the neck. There are few churches dedicated to St Ethelreda and those that are located in the south of England. Most famously Ely Cathedral is devoted to her and it was there that her shrine was located until the reformation. The drawing above shows a capital in Ely Cathedral which Illustrates a miraculous incident which took place when Ethelreda fled from Northumbria. Worn out and weary she lay down to rest. She stuck her staff in the ground and when she awoke the staff had turned in a great tree, providing her with shelter while she rested. Despite the paucity of dedications to her in the north there are tantalising references to a chapel dedicated to her in the Halterburn valley, near Yetholm. It is generally assumed that this chapel was associated with the monastic grange of Kelso Abbey which was located along the Halterburn, in what was then generally recognised as England. No remains are now visible, but the first Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1859) indicated that is stood close to where a sike flowed into the main burn - see arrow on map below. Several years ago Tom Broad of YHS organised a field survey to try and locate this mysterious chapel – but with no success. More recently Tillvas (the Till Valley Archaeological Society), having found medieval pottery in a test trench close to the site indicated on the 1859 map, have organised a dig to try and find out what was going on there – see photograph below, the excavations are to the right of white tent - the location is also marked on the map above with a star. The dig took place in mid September and the project included a visit to the site by children from Yetholm Primary School and an open day for general visitors on the final Saturday; there was also a display of finds in the YHS Heritage Centre in Town Yetholm. A substantial amount of medieval pottery was found, also a (shroud?) pin, a metal arrowhead and a 14th c. silver coin. See photograph below. Apart from these portable, scattered medieval objects there was clear evidence of substantial building work in the area. See photographs below. Was this the chapel? Nothing as fine and as obviously ecclesiastical as the carved to stone capital at the head of this blog post was found! May it have been a mill? The finds are tantalisingly enigmatic. More work is clearly (hopefully?) needed.
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