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Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

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not of reptiles. ? Thus was dissipated the illusion, founded on the Burdiehouse fossils, that saurian . reptiles existed in the carboniferous era. To this CHAPTER XLI. THE ENVIRONS OF EDINBURGH (continwed). Gilmerton-The Kinlochs-Legend of the Bumtdale-Paterson?s C a v e T h e Drum House-The Somrrville Family-Roslin Castle-The St. Clairs-Roslin Chauel-The Buried Barons-Tomb of Earl George-The Under Chapel-The Battle of Roslin-Relics of it- In the chalk formations hereabout fossil remains of the prickly palm have been frequently found, and they have also been found in the lime-pits of Roslin Village-Its old Inn. GILMERTON, a village and puuad sncra parish detached from Liberton, occupies the brow o rising ground about four miles south from the city, on the Roxburgh road, with a church, buill in 1837, and the ancient manor-house of the Kinlochs, known as the Place of Gilmerton, on the south side of which there were in former times butts for the practice of archery. The subordinate part of the village consists 01 some rather unsightly cottages, the abodes of col. liers and carters, who sell ?yellow sqnd? in the city. Robert Bruce granted a charter to Murdoch Menteith of the lands of Gilmerton, in which it was stated that they had belonged of old to William Soulis, in the shire of Edinburgh, and afterwards he granted another charter .of the same lands, ? quhilk Soulis foresfecit ? (sic), with ?? the barony of Prenbowgal (Barnbougle), quhilk was Roger Mowbray?s.? This was evidently Sir William de Soulis, Hereditary Butler of Scotland, whose grandfather, Nicholas, had been a competitor for the crown as gtandson of Marjorie, daughter of Alexander II., and wife of Allan Durward. William was forfeited as a traitor in English pay, and a conspirator against the life of Robert I. He was condemned to perpetual imprisonment by the Parliament in 1320. After this, it is traditionally said to have been the property of a family named Heron, or Herring. At a much more recent period, the barony of Gilnierton belonged to John Spence of Condie, Advocate to Queen Mary in 1561, and who continued as such till 1571. He had three daughters. ?One of them,? says Scotstarvit, ?? was married to Herring of Lethinty, whose son, Sir David, sold all his lands of Lethinty, Gilmerton, and Glasclune, in his own time. Another was married to James Ballantyne of Spout, whose son James took the same course. The third to Sir John Moncrieq by whom he had (? Index of Charters.?) an only son, who went mad, and leaped into the River Earn, and there perished.? In the next century Gilmerton belonged to the Somervilles of Drum, as appears by an Act of Ratification by Parliament, in 1672, to James Somerville, of the lands of Drum and Gilmerton;? and after him they went to the family of Kinloch, whose name was derived from a territory in Fifeshire, and to this family belongs the well-known reel named ? Kinloch of Kinloch.? Its chief, Sir David, was raised to a baronetage of Nova Scotia, by James VII., in the year 1685, but the title became extinct upon the failure of male descendants, though there has been a recent creation, as baronet of Great Britain, in 1855, in the person of Kinloch of that ilk. At what period the Gilmerton branch struck off from :he present stock is unknown, but the first upon record is Francis Kinloch of Gilmerton, who died in 1685, and was succeeded by his only son, Alexander Kinloch, who was created a baronet of Nova Scotia on the 16th September, 1686. He married Magdalene McMath, and had a numerous family. He had been Lord Provost of the city in 1677, His wife, who died in 1674, was buried in the Greyfriars, and the epitaph on her tomb is recorded by Monteith. On his death, in 1696, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Alexander Kinloch of Gilmerton, who married Mary, daughter of the famous General David, Lord Newark, who, after the battle of Naseby, drew off a whole division of Scottish cavalry, and, by a rapid march, surprised and defeated the great Montrose at Philiphaugh, and, in turn, was defeated by Cromwell at Dunbar. His son, Sir Francis, the third baronet, married Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir James Rocheid 3f Inverleith, Bart., by whom he had three sons md ?three daughters. One of the former, Akxmder, as already related in its place, took the surname and arms of his maternal grandfather on .
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3 44 OLD AND NEW? EDINBURGH. [Gilmerton. succeeding to the estate of Inverleith. Sir Francis, who entailed the Edinburgh estate of Gilmerton, died and March, I 747, and Sir James and Sir David succeeded in succession to Gilmerton, and died in 1795, at a place of the same name in Haddingtonshire. Sir Francis was Governor of the British Linen Company and Writer to the Privy Seal of Scotland. By his wife, Harriet Cockburn of Langton, he had five sons-Francis, his successor ; Archibald Kinloch Gordon, a major in the army, lunatic, and the title devolved upon his elder brother, who became Sir Francis, sixth baronet. The old Place of Gilmerton has long since been deserted by the family, which took up their residence at the house of the sa?me name in East Lothian. A mile south of the old mansion iS Gilmerton Grange, which had of old the name of Burndale, or Burntdale, from a tragic occurrence, which suggested to Scott his fine ballad of ?The Gray GILYERTON. who assumed that name on succeeding to an estate; David, who served under Cornwallis in the American War, in the 80th Regiment or Royal Edinburgh Volunteers; Alexander, Collector of Customs at Prestonpans; and John, whodied unmarried. Sir Francis survived his father by only a short time, as the ? Scottish Register ?I for the year I 796 records that he was killed by a pistol-shot in his forty-eighth year at Gilmerton, ?fired by his brother, Major Archibald Kinloch Gordon, who was brought under a strong guard to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh to take his trial.? This unfortunate man, who had been captain in the 65th in 1774, and major in the old 90th Regiment in 1779, was eventually proved to be a Brother.? The tradition, as related to him by John Clerk of Eldin, author of the ?Essay on Naval Tactics,? was as follows : When Gilmerton belonged to a baron named Heron, he had one daughter, eminent for her beauty. ?? This young lady was seduced,? says Sir Walter, ? by the Abbot of Newbattle, a richly endowed abbey upon the banks of the South Esk, now a seat of the Marquis of Lothian. Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned also that the lovers carried on their intercourse by the connivance of the lady?s nurse, who lived at this house of Gilmerton Grange, or Burndale. He formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical
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