east-lothian-1924/05-124

Transcription

HUMBIE.] -- HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (SCOTLAND) COMMISSION. -- [HUMBIE.

south walls. The little gables so formed are
ogival in shape, have spiralled skewputs and
are surmounted by a chimney stalk with a
moulded cope. The building is of rubble and
is covered with harling, but the backset
dressings of the voids are exposed. The
entrance is centred in the south wall. Its
architrave is heavily moulded and breaks into
ears at the head ; the frieze is cushioned. The
moulded cornice has a pediment containing a
scrolled cartouche, on which is a grotesquely
carved cherub's head surmounted by an urn
as a finial.
SCULPTURED STONE.-In a rockery bordering
the lawn north of the house is a slab of
freestone 6 1/2 inches thick, 2 feet 5 inches
above ground and 1 foot 9 inches in
greatest width (fig. 9). The surface is fairly
smooth, and on it are inscribed five concentric
rings, the greatest diameter being 1 foot 3
inches. The incisions appear to have been
executed with a pick or similar percussing
tool, and the inner rings are markedly less
regular than the outer.
HISTORICAL NOTE.-The house takes its
name from the old family in the property.
" Robert Lieston of Humbie " in 1502 married
a daughter of Halket of Pitfirran.1 A hundred
years later Humbie was in possession of a
Lawson family.2

1 Douglas's Baronage (1798) p. 285.
2 Inquisit. Spec. Hadd. Nos. 34, 169, 254,
etc.

xv. S.W. 9 April 1920.

DEFENSIVE CONSTRUCTION.

85. Fort, Stobshiel.-In the angle formed by
a bend in the Birns Water, immediately to the
south of the road between Kidlaw and Stob-
shiel and some 300 yards north-north-east of
the latter place, at an elevation of about 700
feet above sea-level, is a small plateau separated
from the surrounding land by the burn on the
east and north and by a deep hollow with
steep sides on the south-west. The summit,
which is of triangular shape with base to the
north and concave sides, is occupied by a fort
(fig. 94), the rampart running along the edges
of the plateau where it rises some 33 feet above
the burn on the east and 20 feet above the
hollow on the west. The internal measurements

52

are 254 feet from the southern apex to the
middle of the northern rampart and 190 feet
across the northern end or base. The ramparts,
to judge from the remains on the northern side,
have been made largely of stone, but they have
been destroyed on the eastern side and are
much dilapidated on the south-west, the stones
having been removed for building purposes and
the soil thrown down the slope. At the south-
ern extremity the rampart is 10 feet in breadth
at the base, and rises 10 feet above the inner
level and 20 feet above the bottom of the ditch
outside, while

[illustration inserted]
FIG. 94.-Stobshiel (No. 85).

on the northern
side near the
eastern end it
is 10 feet in
breadth and 6
feet in height
on the inside.
Across the nar-
row sloping pro-
jection of the
ridge to the
south, two broad
ditches have
been cut, and
the excavated
material has
been piled up
to form a ram-
part between
them, which is continued a short distance
along the south-western side of the fort.
The inner ditch is 48 feet wide and the
outer 30 feet, the rampart between being
28 feet broad, 14 1/2 feet high on the inside and
15 feet on the outside, while the counterscarp
of the outer trench is 4 feet high. There are
two entrances to the fort, one at the north-
eastern corner and the other at the north-
western corner, and both are now about 12
feet wide. The latter entrance is approached
along the top of a rising spur of ground, and
there are indications that this passage may have
been walled for a distance of nearly 80 feet,
as some 60 feet from the opening in the ram-
part, on each side of this passage, is a mound
of stone and earth.

There are traces of a least a dozen hut
foundations within the fort. some 45 feet from
the north-eastern entrance, and almost oppo-