Baldred’s Auldhame: an early medieval chapel and cemetery

In early 2005, AOC Archaeology Group was called in by Historic Scotland to investigate some human skeletons unearthed by ploughing near Auldhame, East Lothian (Fig 1). The subsequent excavation led by Erlend Hindmarch revealed the remains of a previously unknown early medieval chapel and graveyard, possibly associated with St Baldred. It overlay an Iron Age promontory fort, the ditch of which came to define the boundary of the later graveyard.