Edinburgh Bookshelf

Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

Search

- which it belonged, and annexed to Restalrig. It stood on high ground, where its ancient square belfry tower, four storeys in height, was a very conspicuous object among a group of old trees, long after the church itself bad passed away, till it was blown down by a storm in November, 1866. The effigy of a knight, with hands clasped, in a full suit of armour, lay amid the foundations of the old church as lately as 1855. Tradition avers the tower had been occasionally Great quantities of fruit, vegetables, and daily produce are furnished by Lasswade for the city markets. Save where some primitive rocks rise up in the Pentland quarter of the parish, the whole of its area lies upon the various secondary formations, including sandstone, clays of several kinds, and a great number of distinct coal-seams, with their strata of limestone. On the western side of the Esk the metals stand much on edge, having a dip of 6 5 O in some the manse previously in 1.789, In the burying-ground are interred the first Lord Melville and his successors. Lasswade has long been celebrated for the excellence of its oatmeal, the reputation of which, through Lord Melville, reached George 111. and Queen Charlotte, whose family were breakfasted upon it during childhood, the meal being duly ? sent to the royal household by a miller of the village, named Mutter. surmounted its west gable. The vault, or tomb, hundred and seventy feet. On the eastern side of the Esk the metals have a dip so small-amounting to only I in 7 or 8 -that the coal seams, in contradistinction to the edge-coals, as they are called on the west side, have obtained the name of ?flat broad coals.? One of the mines on the boundary of Liberton was ignited by accident about the year 1770, and for upwards of twenty years resisted fiercely every effort made to extinguish its fire. Besides furable coal seams are twenty-five in number, an8
Volume 6 Page 358
  Shrink Shrink   Print Print   Pictures Pictures