Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 2

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edges of easy and pleasant slopes; but, before it
takes leave, they become flattened into the lips of a
level, luxuriant haugh. A tier of broken rocks in
the channel at Linton-bridge, which formerly occa-
sioned a fine cataract, has been so far shattered as
to destroy the water-scenery, and yet not enough to
serve the design of damaging them, — the enticing of
salmon farther up the river. The salmon produce of
the Tyne, except at its mouth, where the parish
claims no connexion with it, is inconsiderable. The
eastern Peffer-burn runs along the neck of the
northerly projecting district, and most of the north-
ern boundary of the main body of the parish. Its
basin is nearly flat, and was at one time a marshy
waste, but is now a series of valuable and highly
cultivated corn-fields. Clay-marl abounds in the
south, and is extensively used by the farmers instead
of lime. A dark-coloured limestone, veined with
siliceous matter, lies below the marl. The prevail-
ing rock is claystoue, — partly porphyritic Hailes-
castle — a fine old ruin — stands on a rock close on
the right bank of the Tyne, a mile from the west-
ern boundary. It is noted as having been anciently
the property of the notorious Earl of Bothwell,
the temporary residence of Queen Mary, and the
place to which Bothwell conducted her after seiz-
ing her near Linlithgow: it now belongs to Miss
Dalrymple of Hailes, the descendant of the celebrated
Sir David Dalrymple; but it is quite a ruin, and, so
far as it can be used, has very prosaically been made
a dovecot and a granary. — Beanston-house, H mile
to the north-west, and the property of the Earl
of Wemyss, is at present uninhabited, and going to
decay Smeaton- house, a little east of Preston
village, and the seat of Sir Thomas Hepburn, Bart.,
M. P. for the county, is the only modern mansion.
. — A stone, 10" feet high, on the road-side, a little
west of Linton, is said to mark the grave of a Saxon
commander. — The great eastern road between Edin-
burgh and London goes direct eastward through the
parish, and is carried across the Tyne, at the end of
Linton, by a narrow and antiquated bridge. Lin-
ton [which see] contains between a third and a half
of the whole parochial population. The little vil-
lage of Preston, 5 furlongs to the east, has only
about 50. Population of the parish, in 1801, 1,741 ;
in 1831, 1,765. Houses 341. Assessed property,
in 1815, .£13,183. — Prestonkirk is in the presbytery
of Dunbar, and synod of Lothian and Tweeddale.
Patron, Sir C. Dalrymple Fergusson, Bart. Sti-
pend £310 13s. 2d. ; glebe £27 10s. Unappropri-
ated teinds £1,091 5s. 5d. The church was built
in 1770. There is a United Secession chapel at
Linton Baldred, who flourished in the latter part
of the 6th century and the beginning of the 7th,
was long the tutelary of the parish, and is said to
have dignified it by his residence, and founded its
earliest church. Preston, the site of the church,
was one of three villages which contended for his
body after his decease. His statue long lay in the
burying-ground, and was intended to be built into
the church-wall, but was broken in pieces by an
uuromantic mason. The predecessor of the present
church was very ancient, and is mentioned in records
of about a millennium old as ' ecclesiasancti Baldridi.'
A spring of the purest water in the vicinity is called
St. Baldred's Well; and a pool or eddy in the Tyne
is known as St. Baldred's Whirl. The Earls of
Dunbar were anciently the patrons ; and when Earl
Patrick formed his collegiate establishment in the
church of Dunbar, he made the church of Preston-
kirk — or Linton, as it was then called — one of the
prebends. On the farm of Markle stand the ruins
of an ancient monastery, considerable in extent, but
unrefined in architecture, of whose history little is
known. The lands belonging to this establishment
were nearly all alienated from it in 1 606, and at-
tached to the chapel-royal of Stirling. — In 1834 the
parish-school was attended by 92 scholars; and four
private schools, two of which were for females, were
attended by 151. Parochial-schoolmaster's salary
£34 4s. 4Jd., with £30 fees, and £12 other emolu-
ments George Rennie, Esq. of Phantassie, and
Mi 1 . Robert Brown, tenant of Markle, two eminent
agriculturists and modern improvers, lived and died
in the parish. Mr. Brown was the projector and
original conductor of the ' Farmer's Magazine.'
John Rennie, Esq., the brother of the former, and
a well-known eminent civil engineer, was a na-
tive. Mr. Andrew Meikle, the improver and dis-
putedly the inventor of the thrashing-machine, was
long an inhabitant of this parish, and is commemo-
rated by a tombstone in the churchyard. There is
also a handsome tombstone, with an appropriate in-
scription, to the memory of .Mr. Brown.
PRESTONPANS, a small parish in the north-
west extremity of Haddingtonshire ; bounded on the
west by Raveushaugh-burn, which divides it fi'om
Edinburghshire ; on the north by the frith of Forth ;
and, on other sides, by Tranent. It forms a stripe
of 2^ miles in length from south-west to north-east,
by a breadth of from 6 to 10 furlongs; and compre-
hends an area of about 760 acres. The surface swells
into two or three small knolls in the vicinity of
the village of Preston ; but everywhere else it is
level, or falls off with a very gentle declination to-
ward the sea. The beach is a broken and imper-
forated pavement of rock, exhibiting marks of inva-
sion by the sea, and denudation of earthy strata.
The soil of the parish is loam ; part heavy, on a
clay bottom ; part light, on a sandy or gravelly bot-
tom ; and is cultivated in the improved and model
style for which Haddingtonshire is famed. Coal was
wrought here as early perhaps as in any district in
Scotland, and continues still to be plentifully mined.
The shale and sandstone of the coal measures are
singularly abundant in vegetable fossils. The villages
of the parish are Peestonpans, Preston, Dolph-
inston, Morison's Haven, and Meadow Mill :
which see. The principal seats are Preston-Grange,
the property of Sir George Grant Suttie, Bart. ; and
Drummore, the property of William Aitchison, Esq.
Among eminent men who have been connected with
the parish may be mentioned, the Rev. John David-
son, one of Scotland's worthies, and long the minis-
j ter of the parish, some notices of whom occur in
M'Crie's Life of Melville, and in numerous older
. historical works; Alexander Hume, the grammarian,
who was for 10 years the parochial schoolmaster,
and some notices of whom also occur in M'Crie's
[Life of Melville; the Hon. James Erskine of
I Grange, brother to the Earl of Marr, and Lord-jus-
j tice-clerk in the reign of Queen Anne, who, in
j 1734, resigned his judgeship that he might oppose
Sir Robert Walpole in parliament ; Hew Dalrymple,
'■ who, under the title of Lord Drummore, acted a
distinguished and popular part as a member of the
college-of-justice; and William Grant of Preston-
Grange who, as Lord Advocate, in 1746, performed
with general approbation the difficult task of con-
ducting the prosecutions against the defeated Ja-
cobites, and who afterwards was a senator of the col-
lege-of-justice, and one of the Lords commissioners
of Justiciary. The parish is traversed across the
rising grounds of the south-west wing, through the
hamlet of Dolphinston, by the Edinburgh and Lon-
don mailroad; and along the coast through Preston-
pans, by the Edinburgh and North Berwick road by