gb0551ms-36-2-112

Transcription

[Page] 112
[Continued from page 110]

Spottiswoode
house has still a number of nice things in it. Some
fine portraits of bygone Spottiswoodes, the Archbishop
and his wife, the ugliest wife I ever saw, and two
Raeburns. The morning broke very damp and
misty and rain fell about 6.0 for the first time for
a week or ten days. There is much grain still out in
the fields which cannot be led in as there is no
wind to dry it. The font said to preserved here
from Whitechapel is not be found, it has some:
:how disappeared. In the centre of the gable of
the West lodge facing the road way is a window
beneath a pediment surmounted at the apex
by a crescent. The upper angle between the
letters M. I. S. (Mr John Spottiswoode) contains a shield
charged with ? a boar’s head on a chevron between
three trees – and beneath, the inscription mihi vivere
christus et mori lucrum – 1596. The stone is

[Margin] see rough note book

said to have come from the Archbishop’s house
in Glasgow. J. Edington, the land steward,
who superintended many of Lady John’s excavations
is still at Spottiswoode. With his assistance I
discovered in the plantation behind the Stables
to the N. [North] of the house the remains of the pre:
:historic structure which has been described as
a broch. It has been an almost circular
fort with a stone rampart, now entirely broken
down, having a diameter over all of about 123 ft. [feet]

[Continued on page 114]