east-lothian-1924/05-036

Transcription

INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS IN EAST LOTHIAN.

Thermes, who had a fort constructed at Aberlady to shut off supplies to Haddington
by this sea gate, ¹ (cf. No. 3). Meantime that town continued in sore straits with
sickness and lack of supplies. By September it was decided to evacuate " the
evell taken town," in which the desperate garrison could " no longer abide their
misery," but they were still in Haddington on the 27th September. ² In the end
the Earl of Rutland succeeded by a night march in bringing off the guns and
ammunition with the men fit to travel. ³ On the conclusion of peace the works at
Haddington were entirely destroyed.
A hundred years later Oliver Cromwell and his army played an analagous
part in East Lothian. On July 25, 1650 he was at Cockburnspath and next
day took in provisions from his fleet at Dunbar, thence marching to Haddington.
Just beyond the town his cavalry got in touch and skirmished with the
Scots, who fell back through Musselburgh. After the series of manoeuvres,
in which he was outplayed by David Leslie, he had to retire eastwards and
again arrived at Haddington on August 31, where on Sunday, September 1,
he offered battle in the open country, which was declined. That same night
he fell back on Dunbar, where he could be in touch with his fleet and there
won his notable victory over Leslie and the Scots. Hailes was among the local
strongholds immediately " quitted " by the Scots. Thereafter came the siege of
Dirleton (No. 27) and of Tantallon (No. 106) as operations necessary to keep clear
his communications between Berwick and Edinburgh.

GENERAL SURVEY.
I.
ARCHӔOLOGY.
The County of East Lothian is readily accessible from the coast and from
Midlothian on the west, but is hemmed in on the south by the hilly barrier
separating it from the Merse, from which access is obtained either round the
eastern and western extremities of the hills or by the narrow pass cut through
them by the Whitadder Water. The county occupies an area of only about
270 square miles, and the greater part of it consists of a rich, fertile, plain,
gradually increasing in elevation by undulating heights as the hills are ap-
proached, and broken up here and there by intrusions of igneous rocks, which
form the prominent eminences of Traprain Law and North Berwick Law, and
the low range of the Garleton Hills between the valley of the River Tyne and
level plain stretching towards the Forth. Much of the land has been under
cultivation from early times, and consequently many of the prehistoric monu-
ments which formerly existed in these parts have been swept away. In certain
districts in the hill country, however, many traces of these activities of the
early inhabitants have survived.
That the county has been occupied at one time by a people in the
neolithic or later stone age of culture is indicated only by the presence of
implements and weapons of flint and other kinds of stone, which occasionally
turn up in the fields and in sand covered areas near the sea-shore. No traces

1 Balfour's Annales ; Leslie De Origine &c. p. 480.
2 Illustr. Reign of Q. Mary pp. 43, 45, 47.
3 Leslie p. 480.

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