Lonely hilltop hospital run by 300 medieval monks to get anti-vandal protection

Vandals targeted the hilltop site where monks dispensed herbal and plant medicine from the 12th Century.

It is a lonely hilltop site that provided refuge and medical care for wayfarers and the needy for hundreds of years.

Now, protection of Soutra Aisle in Midlothian, where a vast medieval hospital and friary once stood, is to be “maximised” after vandals damaged stonework and signage at the isolated site.

Soutra Aisle in Midlothian, the site of a medieval hospital and friary. | National World

The House of the Holy Trinity at Soutra, around 17 miles south of Edinburgh, served travellers on the main Anglo-Scottish highway from the 12th to the 17th century.

Today only a family tomb - Soutra Aisle - remains at the spot where it is estimated 300 monks dispensed care to those who needed it.

Seeds and plants - some of them exotic for the time - teeth, human bones and traces of disease have all been discovered at the site.

The hospital became a huge draw in the landscape during the medieval period, and served as the main infirmary for Edinburgh. But today the building’s remoteness has attracted a different kind of caller - the vandal.

Richard Pont, of Fala, Soutra & Distric History and Heritage Society, said the organisation had raised £4,500 to fix damage caused to Soutra Aisle and the associated signage.

An application to Historic Environment Scotland for scheduled monument consent said the work would “maximise protection” of the site by reducing signage and using vandal-proof materials.

Mr Pont said: “The aisle itself has suffered a bit of damage and stones were taken off the roof. Whoever did this just took them off the roof and threw them to the ground. The display area was seriously damaged.”

Stones taken from Soutra Aisle, part of the original hospital chapel, will be returned to the building, which later served as a burial vault for the Pringles of Soutra.

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Signage will be reduced, with visitors directed to the full history of the site via a QR code, which links to the Sutra Aisle website. The new display will be manufactured in vandal-resistant material with security screws to fix it to concrete slabs.

The hospital was founded by an order of Augustinian monks at the request of King Malcolm IV around 1160. Following its heyday from the middle of the 12th century to the mid-15th century, the hospital and firary was shut down completely in 1640.

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Soutra Aisle has attracted rising numbers of visitors in recent years.

Research by archaeologist Dr Brian Moffat has done much to illuminate life at the site, where the clay ground has been particularly effective at preserving waste from the hospital. Stone ditches, which served as the infirmary’s plumbing network, also holding clues to the medicines and treatments used.

Many plants at the site have come originally from across three continents, with a number still growing there, including highly-toxic hemlock. The plant was earlier discovered at the site along with the seeds of opium poppies and black henbane, with the trio offering a remarkable insight into surgical practices at the hospital.

Dr Moffat earlier concluded there was only one recipe where the three toxic plants were mixed together - with it administered before the amputation of limbs.

Analysis of plants and seeds found at the site suggest that a range of conditions were treated and managed - from famine to childbirth, dentistry and psychiatric illness.

A spokesperson for Historic Environment Scotland said: “We have received an application for Scheduled Monument Consent to renew the interpretation at Soutra Aisle. Fala, Soutra and District History and Heritage Society have been involved in interpreting the site to the public and we are liaising with them over their proposals. We hope that the interpretation will be able to be shortly reinstated.”