KELSO, burgh of barony, police burgh and market town, Roxburghshire, Scotland, on the left bank of the Tweed, 52 m. (43 m. by road) S.E. of Edinburgh and Icy/ m. N.E. of Jed burgh by the L.N.E.R. Pop. (1931), 3,855. The name has been derived from the old Welsh calch, or Anglo-Saxon cealc, "chalk," and the Scots how, "hollow," a derivation more evident in the earlier forms Calkon and Calchon, and illustrated in Chalkheugh, the name of a locality in the town. The ruined abbey was founded in 1128 by David I. for monks from Tiron in Picardy, whom he transferred hither from Selkirk, where they had been installed fifteen years before. The abbey, completed towards the middle of the 13th century, became one of the most powerful in Scotland, claiming precedence over the other monasteries and disputing the supremacy with St. Andrews. It suffered damage in numerous English forays, was pillaged by the 4th earl of Shrewsbury in 1522, and was reduced to ruins in 1545 by the earl of Hertford (afterwards the Protector Somerset). In 1602 the abbey lands passed into the hands of Sir Robert Ker of Cessford, ist earl of Roxburghe. The ruins were disfigured by an attempt to render part of them available for public worship, and one vault was long utilized as the town gaol, but they were cleared at the beginning of the 19th century and presented to the nation by the duke of Roxburghe in 1919. The late Norman and Early Pointed cruci form church has an unusual ground-plan, the west end of the cross forming the nave and being shorter than the chancel. The nave and transepts extend only 23 ft. from the central tower. The remains include most of the tower, nearly the whole of the walls of the south transept, less than half of the west front, the north and west sides of the north transept, and a remnant of the chancel. The predominant feature is the great central tower, which, as seen from a distance, suggests the keep of a Norman castle.
The Tweed is crossed at Kelso by a bridge of five arches con structed in 1803 by John Rennie. The grammar school occupies the site of the school which Sir Walter Scott attended in 1783. The public park lies in the east of the town, and the race-course to the north of it. The leading industries are the making of fishing tackle, agricultural implements, and chemical manures, besides coach-building, cabinet-making and upholstery, corn and saw mills, iron founding, etc. James and John Ballantyne, friends of Scott, set up a press about the end of the 18th century, from which there issued, in 1802, the first two volumes of the Min strelsy of the Scottish Border. The Kelso Mail, founded by James
Ballantyne in 1797, is now the oldest of the Border newspapers. The town is an important agricultural centre, with weekly corn and fortnightly cattle markets.
Kelso became a burgh of barony in 1634. On Oct. 24, 1715 the Old Pretender was proclaimed James VIII. in the market square, but in 1745 Prince Charles Edward found no active ad herents in the town.
About I m. W. of Kelso is Floors or Fleurs Castle, the principal seat of the duke of Roxburghe. The mansion as originally de signed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1718 was severely plain, but in 1849 William Henry Playfair converted it into a magnificent structure in Tudor style.
On the peninsula formed by the junction of the Teviot and the Tweed stood the formidable castle and flourishing town of Rox burgh from which the shire took its name. No trace exists of the town, and of the castle all that is left are a few ruins shaded by ancient ash trees. Built by the Northumbrians, after the con solidation of the kingdom of Scotland it became a favoured royal residence ; the town beneath its protection reached its palm iest days under David I., and formed a member of the Court of Four Burghs with Edinburgh, Stirling and Berwick. It possessed a church, court of justice, mint, mills, and, what was remarkable for the i 2th century, grammar school. Alexander II. was mar ried and Alexander III. was born in the castle. During the long period of Border warfare, the town was repeatedly burned and the castle captured. The castle was finally razed to the ground in 1460. It was at the siege that the king, James II., was killed by the explosion of a huge gun called "the Lion." On the fall of the castle the town was abandoned in favour of the rising burgh of Kelso. The town, whose patron-saint was St. James, is still commemorated by St. James's Fair, held on the 5th of every August on the vacant site, and the most popular of Border festivals.
Sandyknowe or Smailholm Tower, 6 m. W. of Kelso, dating from the 15th century, is a fine example of a Border Peel. Two m. N. by E. of Kelso is the pretty village of Ednam (Edenham, "The Village on the Eden"), the birthplace of the poet James Thomson, to whose memory an obelisk, 52 ft. high, was erected on Ferney Hill in 1820.