St Mary's Church, Newbattle Abbey is a Grade C listed building in the Midlothian local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 24 March 2000. Burial ground.

St Mary's Church, Newbattle Abbey

WRENN ID
gentle-string-pigeon
Grade
C
Local Planning Authority
Midlothian
Constituency
Midlothian MP: Kirsty McNeill (Lab)
Country
Scotland
Date first listed
24 March 2000
Type
Burial ground
OS grid reference
NT 332 661
Coordinates
55.88382, -3.0691
Source
Historic Environment Scotland listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

St Mary's Church at Newbattle Abbey is a small square private burial ground established in 1705 for the Kerr family, the Marquesses of Lothian and former owners of Newbattle Abbey. The burial ground features sandstone rubble walls with ridged coping stones. The designed gate is decorated with the Lothian crest, sun, and doves, and it bears the initials FWK and the date 1914, commemorating Colonel Frederic Walter Kerr, who died near Ypres in that year.

The Lothian Vault remains within the site, which includes a large droved sandstone memorial with a base, a moulded cornice, and a frieze featuring a waterleaf motif. Below this is a bead and reel motif, and it is surmounted by a cross. An inscribed stone notes that "THE FRONT OF THIS ISLE WAS ENLARGED BY GENERAL LORD MARK KERR" in 1888.

Inside, there are three marble memorials set into the stone, with a corniced pediment on the central slab dedicated to family members, including Mark Kerr who died in 1589 and Jean, Marchioness of Lothian, who "built this Isle" in 1705. Other funerary monuments include a red sandstone Celtic cross, graveslabs carved with the Lothian sun motif, and a stone slab marking the bones of a body found in the cloister garth in 1862, which were reinterred in the Lothian burial ground in 1990.

Local climate

St Mary's Church, Newbattle Abbey receives an average of 960 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 74% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 52% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 39 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 74% of listed buildings. Of these, 23 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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Nearby listed buildings

  1. Archbishop Leighton's House, Newbattle Abbey Grade B 50 m
  2. Orangery And Fernery, Newbattle Abbey Grade B 101 m
  3. Newbattle Parish Church Grade B 131 m
  4. Burial-Ground, Parish Church, Newbattle Road Grade B 145 m
  5. Newbattle House, Newbattle Road, Newbattle Grade B 150 m
  6. Newbattle Abbey House Grade A 180 m
  7. North Sundial, Newbattle Abbey House Grade A 192 m
  8. Walled Garden, Newbattle Abbey Policies Grade B 225 m
  9. South Sundial, Newbattle Abbey House Grade A 249 m
  10. Grotto And Ice-House, Newbattle Abbey Grade B 269 m