Melrose, Old, seat, on a promontory formed by a loop of the Tweed, in par. and 2½ miles E. of Melrose, Roxburghshire. Old Melrose was the site of a Columban monastery (7th century), similar to that of Iona, and afterwards of a chapel, dedicated to St Cuthbert, to which frequent pilgrimages were made.

(John Bartholomew, Gazetteer of the British Isles (1887))