SAUGHTON HALL. 319 Riccar&&l
He was at once-for some reasons known at the
time-accused of having committed this outrage,
and had to seek shelter in Holland.
Eastward of this quarter stands the old mansian
of Saughton, gable-ended, with howsteps, dormeI
windows, steep roofs, and massive chimneys, with
an ancient crowstepped dovecot, ornamented with
an elaborate string-moulding, and having a shield,
covered with initials, above its door. Over the
entrance of the house is a shield, or scroll-work,
charged with a sword between two helmets, with
the initials P. E., the date, 1623, and the old
Edinburgh legend, ?? BLISIT. BE. GOD. FOR. AL. HIS
GIPTIS.? This edifice is in the parish of St. Cuthbert?s
; but New Saughton and Saughton Loan End
are in that of Corstorphine.
For many generations the estate of Saughton
was the patrimony and residence of the Bairds, a
branch of the house of Auchmedden.
James, eldest son and heir of Sir James Baird,
Knight of Saughton, in the shire of Edinburgh, was
created a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1695-6. He
entailed the lands of Saughton Hall in 1712, and
married the eldest daughter of Sir Alexander
Gibson, of Pentland, and died, leaving a son and
successor, who became involved in a serious affair,
i~ 1708.
In a drinking match in a tavern in Leith he
insisted on making his friend Mr. Robert Oswald
intoxicated. After compelling him to imbibe repeated
bumpers, Baird suddenly demanded an
apology from him as if he had committed some
breach of good manners. This Oswald declined to
do, and while a drunken spirit of resentment remained
in his mind against Baird, they came to
Edinburgh together in a coach, which they quitted
at the Nether Bow Port at a late hour.
No sooner were they afoot in the street than
Baird drew his sword, and began to make lunges at
Oswald, on whom he inflicted two mortal wounds,
and fled from the scene, leaving beside his victim
a broken and bloody sword. On the ground of
its not being ? forethought felony,? he was some
years after allowed by the Court of Justiciary
to have the benefit of Queen Anne?s Act of
Indemnity.
He married a daughter of Baikie, of Tankerness,
in Orkney, and, surviving his father by only a year,
was succeeded by hi son, an officer in the navy,
at whose death, unmarried, the title devolved upon
his brother Sir William, also an officer in the navy,
who married, in 1750, Frances, daughter of Colonel
Gardiner who was slain at the battle of Prestonpans.
He died in 1772, according to Schomberg?s
Naval Chronology,? ?at his seat of Saughton
Hall,? in I 7 7 I according to the Sofs Magazine for
that year.
From Colonel Gardiner?s daughter comes the
additional surname now used by the family.
The old dovecot, we have said, still remains here
untouched. In many instances these little edifices
in Scotland survive the manor-houses and castles
to which they were attached, by chance perhaps,
rather than in consequence of the old superstition
that if one was pulled down the lady of the family
would die within a year of the event By the law of
James I. it was felony to destroy a ?dovecot,? and
by the laws of James VI., no man could build one
in ? a heugh, or in the country, unless he had lands
to the value of ten chalders of victual yearly
within two miles of the said dovecot.?
The ancient bridge of Saughton over the Leith
consists of three arches with massive piers, and
bears the date of repairs, apparently 1670, in a
square panel. Through one of the arches of this
bridge, during a furious flood in the river, a
chaise containing two ladies and two gentlemen
was swept in 1774. and they would all have
perished had not their shrieks alarmed the family
at Saughton Hall, by whom they were succoured
and saved.
There is a rather inelegant old Scottish proverb
with reference to this place, ?Ye breed o? Saughton
swine, ye?re neb is ne?er oot 0? an ill turn.?
Throughout all this district, extending from Coltbridge
to the Redheughs, by Gogar Green and
Milburn Tower, the whole land is in the highest
state of cultivation, exhibiting fertile corn-fields,
fine grass parks and luxuriant gardens, interspersed
with coppice, with the Leith winding amidst them,
imparting at times much that is sylvan to the
scenery.
South of Gogar Bank are two old properties-
Baberton, said to be a royal house, which, in the
last century, belonged to a family named Inglis
(and was temporarily the residence ,of CharI?es X.
of France), and Riccarton, which a n boast of
great antiquity indeed.
Among the missing charters of Robert I. is one
to Walter Stewart, of the barony of Bathgzte, with
the lands of Richardfoun, the barony of Rathew, of
Boundington, and others in the Sheriffdom of Edinburgh.
Thus, we see, it formed part of the dowry
given by the victor of. Bannockbum to his daughter
the Lady Margery, wife of Walter, High Steward
of Scotland, in 1316-direct ancestor of the House
of Stewart-who died in his castle of Bathgate in
1328, his chief residence, the site of which is still
marked by some ancient pine trees.
In the reign of King Robert III., the lands of
