[1] In the nineteenth century a chance location of about 120 skeletons in shallow graves near Hospitalfield House suggests the site of a medieval burial ground.

Hospitalfield House is now an arts centre, and inspired the fictional location "Monkbarns", the home of Jonathan Oldbuck, title character of Sir Walter Scott’s novel, The Antiquary.

He writes: This chapel [of St John the Baptist] stood near the mansion-house of Hospitalfield, a mile to the westward of Arbroath, and was erected in connection with the hospital or infirmary of the Abbey, established at this healthy spot at such a distance from the parent monastery as to relieve it from the risk of danger from contagious diseases.

[3]He dates the hospital as being: ...in existence previous to the year 1325, when Abbot Bernard leased the lands of "Spedalfeilde, belonging to the hospital of Saint John Baptist, near Aberbrothoc," to Reginald de Dunbradan and Hugo Macpeesis, for five years, at a rent of forty shillings, payable to the Almory of the monastery; and took them bound to build two sufficient husbandry houses—namely, a barn forty feet long, and a byre of the same length, within one year from their entry, and to leave the same in good order on the lands at the end of their lease—a noticeable instance of progress in the management of lands, and the wisdom of the Abbot's administration.

This door appears, from the depth and character of its mouldings to have been one of the principal entrances to the hospital, and to have been erected after the early English style of architecture had ceased to be followed.

If our view be correct, these marks denote the erection of the hospital to have been from fifty to a hundred years subsequent to the foundation of the Abbey.

[3]Late in 1860 a chance discovery by Patrick Allan-Fraser, owner of Hospitalfield, led to an archaeological dig that located some 120 skeletons which were probably from a burial place adjacent to the original hospital.

The account of the excavation and the significance of the find is recalled in detail in an article Jervise wrote for the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

He recalls the date when Allan-Fraser first discovered the skeletons and their significance as follows: During the autumn of 1860, while a field was being broken up by the plough upon the estate of Hospitalfield, bits of human bones were brought to the surface.

The present house was built in the 19th century, and was the home of Patrick Allan Fraser (1813–1890), a noted Scottish painter and antiquarian.