Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654
| Name: | Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673 |
| Title: | Lavden sive Lothien |
| Pagination: | 40-41 |
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Translation of text:
One or two miles to the east from this castle on the shore of the Forth began the Wall of Severus, in the vernacular Graeme’s Dyke, which stretches from east to west as far as the mouth of the Clyde, which we discuss elsewhere. This whole province is filled with the elegant houses of the noble and rich, which are beautiful because of their situation on waters and the gardens with trees, with which they are adorned.
This province is divided into three nomarchiai or prefectures, which are commonly called the three Lothians, viz. East, Mid and West. The East is commonly called the prefecture of Haddington, from the city of Haddington, to which the inhabitants come to hear justice. This prefecture contains more or less twenty four adjoining parishes, each of which has its own church for sacred gatherings. All places beyond the Tyne to the east and a few miles on this side of the Tyne are reckoned to belong to this prefecture.
The inhabitants, rivers, forts and houses of this prefecture have already been once and for all discussed in the general description of Lothian, therefore we shall not repeat anything here. Mid Lothian is commonly called the prefecture of Edinburgh, because its inhabitants go to Edinburgh to hear justice. This prefecture contains more or less thirty parishes with their churches. It has for its boundary on the east the prefecture of Haddington, likewise the River Almond on the west, by which it is separated from West Lothian or the prefecture of Linlithgow, as it is called. This third prefecture takes its name from the city in which justice is declared to the natives; and it contains more or less twenty parishes with churches. In this prefecture there are silver mines, from which no small amount of pure silver has formerly been dug out, but for some years past digging has ceased. If I wanted to gather together everything that
Through all three Lothians they have for the use of fire lithanthrax or coal, as they call it, dug from the bowels of the earth, about which more fully elsewhere. They also use through the three Lothians burnt chalk for fertilising the fields. The better known families in these three prefectures are these: Hays, Douglases, Maxwells (7) , Hamiltons, Maitlands, Kers, Setons, Scotts, Livingstons, Ramsays, Borthwicks, Murrays, Elphinstones, Napiers, Cranstouns (8), Drummonds, Sinclairs, Johnstons, Hepburns, Prestons, Lauders, Dundases, [Fercastori], Wauchopes.
DESCRIPTION
OF LOTHIAN
By WILLIAM FORBES
Minister of Innerwick
Three miles beyond Dunbar to the south east is situated the castle and parish church of Innerwick. This parish extends three miles to the south through the Lammermuir Hills (which separate Lothian from the Merse), the church being set on the River [Bothlaeus]. All of this country rises into high mountains, yet there are several plains, and streams wash sunny valleys that are not only fertile but pleasant with grass, crops, flocks and cattle. The well known spring of Elmscleugh is there, whose water is light, tasteless, odourless and exceptionally pure and of outstanding diversity: for it is four ounces lighter than all the waters of this province, and quickly leaves the innards and abdomen because of its slightness. There too is a numerous band of hares, and frequent and famous hunting, and fowling of considerable numbers of partridges, herons and crows. From the Lammermuir Hills to the north-east, in the direction of the Firth of Forth, for almost two miles a plain slopes down gently, very productive of barley, wheat, oats and all kinds of crops, very rich in enclosures, very beautiful with woods, very fecund in milk and honey, to an extent that not unjustly
If any place on earth outshines beautiful Baiae,
Innerwick alone claims the distinction. (9)
From the church one third of a mile to the north-east is the fortified castle of Innerwick, beautiful with orchards and woods, impassable with high rocks to the east and fortifications and ramparts to the west, on all sides impregnable. At the base of the inaccessible rock, a foaming burn slips through echoing boulders, and no other is more suited to growing grass, clothing with flowers whatever it washes. Plane trees too and poplars shade the banks, so that people viewing it at a distance think the groves of the banks are continuous with the hills. If you cast your eyes farther to the south, a rugged mountain with barren rocks and heaths and its high peaks in the clouds delights the mind with the change of view and commends the nearer felicity more temptingly by the image of roughness.
An equal distance from the church to the west is the castle of Thurston, which delights the eyes with a different kind of scenery. For the wood here is marked by a few, but outstanding trees; then the garden stretching into the distance, worthy of the Muses and all the gods whom humanity has taken for the cultivation of plants. It would take too long to describe in detail how nature plays with the manifold beauty of the location, how in a small space it has produced all the forms by which all regions are distinguished. Here too there is a burn, which secretly slips down for a great distance through some underground holes, later emerging from these bursts into the open, and finally vanishes absorbed into the Ocean. The fishing here is quite profitable, but especially in the month of August, when shoals of herring are caught in nets and baskets and taken to the ports in boats and skiffs. There are here two ports, in the vernacular called Skateraw and Thorntonloch, very suited to boats and skiffs, but they lack defences and walls, and owe everything to nature, nothing to skill and industry. Here too are quarries, from which shingles or slices of stone for roofing buildings are extracted. Here too are coal shafts, and excellent coal is extracted.
From Innerwick a mile to the north east is the town of Dunglass and the pitiful ruins of the ancient seat of the Humes: in 1640 A.D., on the 30th of August, by the force of gunpowder, of which there was a very great amount in the lower cellars, the well fortified castle with its rich furnishings was reduced to ashes and ruins as if by a blast of lightning. This disaster killed many distinguished men. Among those of more illustrious note who perished were the Earl of Haddington, governor of the castle, the provost of the province Alexander [Orestin ?Forrester], son of the Earl of March, Robert Hamilton, brother of the said Earl of Haddington, John Keith, uncle of the Earl Marischal, Sir Alexander Hamilton of Lawfield, Sir John Hamilton of Redhouse, Sir Gideon Balliol of Lochend, James Inglis of Ingliston, John [Couper] of Gogar, Patrick Hamilton, natural brother of the Earl of Haddington, and John Gaittis minister of the church of Bunkle. Apart from these, many (the exact number is uncertain because of the huge calamity and confused and unexpected slaughter) were killed, either burned in the fire or crushed in the ruins and struck by the stones. Some
