Jedburgh

Jedburgh, royal burgh (town), Scottish Borders council area, historic county of Roxburghshire, southeastern Scotland. It is situated on Jed Water, a tributary of the River Teviot, within 10 miles (16 km) of the English border.

In the 9th century a church was built on the site of the present abbey. In 1118 the future king David I of Scotland founded a priory for Augustinian monks from Beauvais in France and elevated it in 1147 to the status of an abbey. The settlement was repeatedly damaged in border warfare with the English; it was burned in 1523 and ruined again in 1544. The abbey was suppressed in 1559 and eventually purchased in 1637 by the 3rd earl of Lothian. In 1913 it was taken over by the National Monuments Commission.

Jedburgh Castle stood above the river at the southern end of the burgh. Also erected by David I, it was one of five fortresses ceded to England in 1174. It occasionally served as a royal residence but was so often captured by the English that it became a menace rather than a protection and was demolished in 1409. The site was occupied by the county prison, a Georgian building still known as the Castle.

In October 1566 Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed at a house in Queen Street which is now arranged as a museum, with many relics relating to the queen. The proverbial “Jeddart justice,” according to which a man was hanged first and tried afterward, seems to have been a hasty generalization from the solitary summary execution of a gang of rogues. Located along the main road leading from the English border to Edinburgh, the town is considered a gateway to Scotland. Pop. (2001) 4,280; (2011) 4,030.