Grampian Club > Leaves from my autography

LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 03
privileged to examine interesting articles of vertu
which had belonged to the palaces of Holyrood,
Falkland, Linlithgow, and Dunfermline, and to Loch-
leven Castle and the Abbey of Cambuskenneth.
Through Mr Paton and his distinguished son, now
Sir Joseph Noel Paton, I was recommended to the
Scottish Society of Antiquaries, and elected a fellow.
But my salary of £70 a year, without any prospect
of augmentation, necessitated my looking elsewhere,
and at midsummer 1850 I accepted the assistantship
at Ballingry, a small parish in the district of Kinross.
Of this parish the incumbent was in his eighty-fourth
year ; and he was willing that I should be appointed
his successor. At Ballingry I resided at Chapel of
Lochore, in a farm-house built on the prtetorium of an
ancient camp. Here, it is believed, the Roman general,
Agricola, encamped in a.d. 83, not long before his
march into Strathearn and his conflict with Galgacus
at the battle of the Grampians.*
At Ballingry the parish school had for forty years
been practically closed. The schoolmaster, who did
not lack learning or intelligence, had an impediment
* Sir Robert Sibbald, who published his "History of Fifeshire " in 1710,
remarks that the form of Lochore camp could be distinctly traced. It presented,
on the west side, three rows of ditches, and as many ramparts of stone and
earth, and on the east side a round turret, the circumference measuring 2020 feet.
Tlie camp rested on the border of Lochore loch, which was surrounded by a dense
forest. During the time of Sir Robert Sibbald and subsequently, Roman s^jear-
heads and other remains were found in the locality ; and early in the present
century a marble chess-table was dug up from the lake, and after passing through
various hands was presented to myself. It now belongs to Major-General Sir
James Edward Alexander of Westerton, Stirlingshire ; I gave it to his brother,
the late Major John Alexander Henderson.