88 QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH.
and dash against the very boundary-walls of the various proprietors in the
neighbourhood.
Maitland tells us that this village anciently was a naval Roman station,
‘ which had not only a safe and commodious harbour, but, from the vestipa
of the military ways still remaining, appears to have had those Roman roads
leading to it from south, eaqt, and west.’ That it had been a Roman
town, originally, is obvious enough from the number of Roman antiquities
which have from time to time been picked up in and around it :’a large square
stone, for example, was found there with an eagle sculptured on it, grasping
~ the lightning in its talons and holding a crown in its beak; so about the
same time, and not very far from the same place, was discovered the base of a
column, with a medal of Faustina, consort to M. Antonius, buried under it ;
while farther inwards in the same direction, again, a few years after, ‘ divers
stonern walls,’ of great thickness, were laid bare, running parallel to each
other, on and besides which was got a large number of Roman medals,
fibula, and potsherds or broken urns. Accordingly, from these and other
circumstances of less moment, antiquaries have concluded, and not without
good reason apparently, that this nice little village was anciently a Roman
station.
Ecclesiastically, Cramond is not without interest. It is related that David I.,
in his desire to introduce English Barons into Scotland, gifted one-half of
the manor of Cramond, with its church, to Robert Avenel, as an inducement
to him to remain in, and others probably to come over into, his kingdom,
which gift the pious Robert afterwards transferred to the Bishop of Dunkeld.
The church was in Nether-Cramond, and the locality, after the transference
was effected, was called Bishop’s Cramond : the other portion of the parish,
remaining with the crown, was called for a similar reason King‘s Cramond.
Bishop’s Cramond, in consequence of the interest thus acquired in it by the
diocese of Dunkeld, was ,occasionally honoured by a temporary residence of
the bishop at it : one of them in the year 12 10, as we are given to understand,
actually conferring upon the sweet, little, unpretentious place the very distinguished
honour of dying in it, whence his remains were removed with
great pomp and solemnity, and interred in the monastery of Inchcolm. In
the church here there were two altars, one consecrated to Columba, the
patron saint of Dunkeld, and the other to the holy Virgin. Up to the
Reformation the parish remained ‘a mensa1 cure ’ of the Bishop of Dunkeld,
and was served by a vicar: after the Reformation, the endowments for the
support of the chaplains were acquired by the Earl of Haddington, while the
