Dowsing for the Bishop's palace in the Scottish Borders

[Grahame]

World archaeologists hunt for lost palace in Scottish Borders
An international effort is being made to identify a medieval palace in the Scottish Borders.

Archaeologists and students from Australia, the USA, Canada and the Netherlands have descended on a field outside the village of Ancrum.

Earlier digs have identified a "substantial" medieval building, without establishing its purpose.

Archaeologist Ian Hill said: "We are now trying to determine exactly what the building was."

Documents show that the Bishop of Glasgow, William de Bondington, had a summer residence at Ancrum, near Jedburgh, from the 1230s until his death in 1258.

The palace entertained Scots royalty with at least three charters being signed there by Alexander II in 1236.
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In the 1990s Alistair Munro, who lives nearby, walked Mantle Walls several times with the dowsing rods he used for locating underground water sources.

His initial discovery of substantial areas of stonework beneath the harvested field led to historians and archaeologists taking interest. Following a geophysical survey in 2011 - which corroborated much of Alistair's mapping - excavations were carried out the following year and again in 2019.

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