CRAMOND. 87
very interesting, and have a romance and fascination about them which
structures of a more modem day, although adorned with all the taste aid
beauty which the most cultivated art can lend them, do not possess. Gifted
with speech, what wild tales of wassail and riot, love and hate, friendship and
revenge, marriage and feud, could they’not relate !
Possibly Dalmeny Park is the object of greatest interest in this neighbourhood,
remarkable alike for the beauty of its position and the rich and varied
scenery of which it forms the centre. We have visited few places with which
we have been more pleased, and seen fewer sights still which we have so
thoroughly enjoyed. The bold waving surface of the demesne, with its noble
avenue of trees, magnificent park, and pleasant pastures fringed with long
ridges of rocks and canopied by a foliage of the most luxuriant growth ; the
majestic Forth almost at your feet, stretching away east and west, gemmed
with many an island, dotted with innumerable craft of varied sail, and seemingly
banked by that massive rock-ribbed barrier of mountains which forms
the boundary of the Highlands ; the rich and rugged scenery on either side,
with here and there in the very front of it some old castellated fortress, now
‘all tattered and torn,’ but big with the memories of former struggles and
triumphs, standing out in clear and bold relief, the time-scarred sentinel of
the neighbourhood-all this taken together constitutes a scene, the wide
extent and varied beauty and grandepr of which may be equalled, but raiely
surpassed, and from which painter and poet alike may inbreathe the purest
and divinest inspiration.
CRAMOND,
A parish partly in the counties of Linlithgow and Edinburgh, lies a little
to the east of Dalmeny, with the beautifully wooded Hill of Corstorphine on
the south. It is intersected by the river Almond, which flows on somewhat
noisiIy here over its rugged and boulder-strewn bed, between steep banks and
under afoliage with which it is almost arched, and falls into the sea at a
creek, on the east side of which, on a gently declining brae, stands the sweet
little village of the name. The arable pasture of the parish has long been in
a state of high cultivation, and is generally remunerative-the remainder consisting
of large valuable plantations and rich meadow pastures. A very
interesting and pleasant walk for foot-passengers, along the shore-line from
this to Leith, might be constructed at little or no expense ; but as it is, it is
rather heavy plodding to get along over the dried sand; besides, one is
exposed occasionally to be overtaken by the waves which rise in spring-tides,
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
