Alternative Names 'Bourjo'
Site type QUARRY
Canmore ID 55741
Site Number NT53SW 33
NGR NT 5485 3274
Council SCOTTISH BORDERS, THE
Parish MELROSE
Former Region BORDERS
Former District ETTRICK AND LAUDERDALE
Former County ROXBURGHSHIRE

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Archaeological Notes

NT53SW 33 5485 3274

(Centred: NT 5485 3274) Bourjo (NR)
OS 6" map (1938)

'Bourjo...there is a tradition that the Druids sacrificed in the Grove of Oaks which is encompassed with a fosse and there is a wall to it from the east and west.'
R Pococke 1760

Burg-jo is believed by some to be a fortified place though no ramparts or ditches are visible. Others support the theory that the detached hillock is the result of water action - which is more probable.
Hist Berwickshire Natur Club 1907

Old Quarry; "Bourjo": The hill-face, which is here very steep, has been quarried for a length of about 180ft and to a maximum height of about 25ft; behind lie considerable piles of waste through which an extraction road descends northwards in the general direction of the Abbey (NT53SW 30). The workings appear to be of great age, and it is thus probable that this quarry was a source of some of the sandstone, particularly of the yellowish variety, that was used in the rebuilding of the abbey after 1385.
Other traces of quarrying, including one pit of some size, can be seen here and there both to the SW and to the NE of "Bourjo", and at about the same elevation or slightly higher.
RCAHMS 1956

Two large, and one small, mounds remain of the spoil from this old quarry.
Visited by OS (JLD) 11 January 1961.

HBNC (1907) 'Reports of the meetings of the Berwickshire Naturalist's Club, for 1903', Hist Berwickshire Natur Club, vol.19
Page(s): 18-19

Pococke, R (1887) Tours in Scotland 1747, 1750, 1760, in Kemp, D W Edinburgh
Page(s): 341-2 Held at RCAHMS D.20.POC.R

RCAHMS (1956) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. An inventory of the ancient and historical monuments of Roxburghshire: with the fourteenth report of the Commission, 2v Edinburgh
Page(s): 323, No.622 Held at RCAHMS A.1.1.INV/14