Architecturally the abbey may be described as a splendid example of the Middle Pointed style, strongly affected on the one hand by Flamboyant and Perpendicular tendencies, and on the other by the individuality of some of the builders. Cruciform in plan, it measured 214⅛ feet from east to west, the width of the nave being 69 feet, and across the transepts 115⅜. 3 he noble edifice was damaged by the English in 1545; and since the Reformation it has been altered to suit the necessities of Presbyterian worship (1618-1810), and plundered by builders to supply ornaments for houses. The whole building is now in ruins. The west end and a good part of the north side have disappeared; but the elevation of the south side is nearly entire, both the transepts and the east end are externally in very fair preservation, part of the central tower is standing, and the sculptured roof still covers the east end of the chancel. Of the individual features of the building, the great eastern window has been generally most admired since Sir Walter Scott celebrated the moonlit aspect of its “slender shafts of shapely stone.” It has five lights; the height is 37 feet and the width 16; and the upper portion is filled in with delicate tracery of a geometrical design. Very beautiful too is the whole gable of the south transept. In the interior, on the north side of the nave, there still stand four of the original square piers, and one of them shows a Norman “cap.” The choir, the west end of which is shut off by a massive rood-screen, has been largely “spoiled by rough 17th century work”; but enough remains of the decorative detail to provoke the admiration and despair of the modern artist in stone. The facile and at the same time elaborate rendering of vegetable forms, such as the Scotch “kail,” is particularly striking. It was in the abbey-church of Melrose, where Alexander II. had long before been buried near the high altar, that the heart of Bruce found its final resting-place; and among the many tombs which afterwards gathered under the same roof were those of his faithful knight James Lord Douglas, Sir William the dark knight of Liddesdale, and the hero of Chevy Chase.

The ancient muniments of the abbacy have been preserved in the archives of the earl of Morton; they were published by the Bannatyne Club (2 vols., 1837, Liber Sancte Marie de Metros'), under the editorship of Cosmo Innes. Among the many interesting documents is one of the very earliest specimens of the Scotch tongue. The Chronica de Mailros, preserved among the Cotton MSS., has been twice printed,—at Oxford (1684) by Fulman, and by the Bannatyne Club (1835), edited by John Stevenson. From about 1140 till its close in 1265 the chronicle may be considered original; it was put largely under contribution by later compilers.

See Walcott, The Ancient Church of Scotland; W. Hutchinson, A View of Northumb rland, <C∙c., Newcastle, 1778; Adam Milne, Description of the Parish of Melrose, Kelso, 1782; J. Bower, Description of the Abbeys of Melrose and Old Melrose, Kelso, 1813; J. A. Wade, History of St Mary's Abbey, Melrose, Edinburgh, 1861; Fred. Pinches, The Abbey Church of Melrose (a series of architectural drawings), London, 1879.