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
.
