THE TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton also granted to St. Cuth
bert?s Church the tithes and oblations of Legbor
nard, a church which cannot now be traced.
The name is supposed to be a corruption o
Lepertoun, as there stood here a hospital fo
lepers, of which all vestiges have disappeared ; bu
the lands thereof in some old writs (according tc
the ?New Statistical Account?) were called ?Spital
town.?
At Nether Liberton, three-quarters of a mile nortl
of the church, was a mill, worked of course by thc
Braid Burn, which David I, bestowed upon tht
monks of Holyrood, as a tithe thereof, ??wit1
thirty cartloads from the bush of Liberton,? gift!
confirmed by William the Lion under the Grea
Seal circa I I 7 1-7.
The Black Friars at Edinburgh received fivc
pounds sterling annually from this mill at Nethei
Liberton, by a charter from King Robert I.
Prior to the date of King David?s charter, thc
church of Liberton belonged to St. Cuthbert?s
The patronage of it, with an acre of land adjoining
it, was bestowed by Sir John Maxwell of that iik
in 1367, on the monastery of Kilwinning,pro sahh
aniiiim SUE et Agnetis sponsiz SUE.
This gift was confirmed by King David 11.
By David 11. the lands of Over Liberton,
?( quhilk Allan Baroune resigned,? were gifted tc
John Wigham ; and by the same monarch the land:
of Nether Liberton were gifted to William Ramsay,
of Dalhousie, knight, and Agnes, his spouse, 24th
October, 1369. At a later period he granted a
charter ?to David Libbertoun, of the office of
sergandrie of the overward of the Constabularie of
Edinburgh, with the lands of Over Libbertoun
pertaining thereto.? (? Robertson?s Index.?)
Adam Forrester (ancestor of the Corstorphine
family) was Laird of Nether Liberton in 1387, for
estates changed proprietors quickly in those troublesome
times, and we have already reterred to him
as one of those who, with the Provost Andrew
Yichtson, made arrangements for certain extensive
additions to the church of St. Giles in that year.
William of Liberton was provost of the city in
1429, and ten years subsequently with William
Douglas of Hawthornden, Meclielson of Herdmanston
(now Harviston), and others, he witnessed
the charter of Patrick, abbot of Holyrood, to Sir
Yatrick Logan, Lord. of Restalrig, of the office of
bailie of St. Leonard?s. (? Burgh Charters,? No.
At Liberton there was standing till about 1840
a tall peel-house or tower, which was believed to
XXVI.)
have been the residence of Macbeth and other
barons of Liberton, and which must not be confounded
with the solitary square tower that stands
to the westward of the road that leads into the
heart of the Braid Hills, and is traditionally said to
have been the abode of a troublesome robber
laud, who waylaid provisions coming to the city
markets.
The former had an old dial-stone, inscribed
?? God?s Providence is our Inheritance.?
Near the present Liberton Tower the remains
of a Celtic cross were found embedded in a wall in
1863, by the late James Drummond, R.S.A. It
was covered with knot-work.
The old church-or chapel it was more probably
-at Kirk-Liberton, is supposed to have been dedicated
to the Virgin Mary-there having been a
holy spring near it, called our Lady?s Well-and
it had attached to it a glebe of two oxgates of
land.
In the vicinity was a place called Kilmartin,
which seemed to indicate the site of some ancient
and now forgotten chapel.
In.1240 the chapelry of Liberton was disjoined by
David Benham, Bishop of St. Andrews and Great
Chamberlain to the King, from the parish of St.
Cuthbert?s, and constituted a rectory belonging to
the Abbey of Holyrood, and from then till the
Reformation it was served by a vicar.
For a brief period subsequent to 1633, it was a
prebend of the short-lived and most inglorious
bishopric of Edinburgh ; and at the final abolition
thereof it reverted to the disposal of the Crown.
The parochial registers date from 1639.
When the old church was demolished prior to
:he erection of the new, in 1815, there was found
very mysteriously embedded in its basement an
ron medal of the thirteenth century, inscribed in
xncient Russian characters ? THE GRAND PRINCE
3 ~ . ALEXANDER YAROSLAVITCH NEVSKOI.?
The old church is said to have been a picuresque
edifice not unlike that now at Corstor-
Ihine ; the new one is a tolerably handsome semi-
Gothic structure, designed by Gillespie Graham,
,eated for 1,430 persons, and having a square
ower with four ornamental pinnacles, forming a
)leasing and prominent object in the landscape
outhward of the city.
Subordinate to the church there were in Catholic
imes three chapels-one built by James V. at
3rigend? already referred to ; a second at Niddrie,
ounded by Robert Wauchope of Niddrie, in 1389,
.nd dedicated to ? Our .Lady,? but which is now
inly commemorated by its burying-ground-which
ontinues to be in use-and a few faint traces of
