A vision of Britain through time
A vision of Britain from 1801 to now.
Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.
A vision of Britain through time
A vision of Britain from 1801 to now.
Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.
Preston, a village in Prestonpans parish, Haddingtonshire, ½ mile S by E of the town of Prestonpans, and near Prestonpans station on the North British railway. It got its name from being a priests' town of the monks of Holyrood and of Newbattle, both of which fraternities had lands adjoining it; and, with Prestonpans, it figures prominently in traditional tales respecting their character and mercantile achievements. Both its relation to the monks, and its position on the great road of a former period, occasioned it to be frequently visited by the Scottish princes. It was formerly noted also for a fair, held on the second Thursday of October, and called St Jerome's Fair. The chapmen or travelling merchants of the Lothians bad, at a period when their craft was one of no small importance to the country, formed themselves into a regular guild; and they annually attended this fair to elect their officebearers for the following year. In a garden at the side of the road, near the E end of the village, stands, in the centre of what till last century formed a large open square, an elegant cross (1617), to the privilege of holding their annual meetings at which they laid claim-a stone pillar about 15 feet high, surmounting a small octagonal erection 9 feet in height. Till a comparatively recent date a social fraternity, styled the Chapmen of the Lothians, and chiefly composed of Edinburgh citizens, has been in the way of annually giving an imaginary report of their extensive transactions; and more than once has the present minister of Prestonpans, since his election as their honorary chaplain forty years ago, heard this report with facetious accompaniments given from the cross by one of the magistrates or other civic dignitary of the metropolis.
N of the village stands, in a ruinous condition, a venerable tower which Sir Walter Scott supposed to have been originally a fortalice of the Earls of Home, when they bore an almost princely sway over the SE of Scotland, and which, for a long time after the close of the 14th century, when the circumjacent barony came by marriage into the possession of the Hamiltons of Fingalton and Ross, was the seat of that family, the principal one of their name, and afterwards called the Hamiltons of Preston. The seat or castle, of which the ruined tower is but a vestige, was burned by the Earl of Hertford in 1544, by Cromwell in 1650, and by accident in 1663, and was then abandoned. The Hamiltons are represented by Sir William Hamilton, Bart., whose father, Sir William (1791-1856), the learned Professor of Logic, reacquired the ruined tower and the garden around it in the early part of the present century. Figuring in history as staunch partisans of the cause of civil and religious liberty, they afforded marked protection to Mr John Davidson, the eminent confessor and `Scottish worthy;' and, in the stirring times of the ecclesiastico-civil war, Robert Hamilton, the brother of Sir William of Preston, led the Presbyterians in the actions of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge.
To the E of the cross, and within the enclosure surrounding what was, till lately, Dr Schaw's (now Miss Murray's) Hospital, are the remains of the ancient manorial residence of Lord Grange, whose wife, by his connivance, was carried off and clandestinely confined for years in the island of St Kilda. This, `Preston House,, was built after the Hamiltons had abandoned the `venerable tower,' and was never occupied by any of them. What remained of the estate of Preston after the Revolution was, owing to the representative of the Hamilton family declining to take the oaths to the Revolution sovereigns, transferred to a nephew of Hamilton, under a private arrangement for redemption should a covenanted sovereign come to the throne. It was for this nephew, Sir James Oswald, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, or his son who shortly thereafter succeeded him as laird, that Preston House was erected. The estate, however, beginning heavily burdened, the whole was, shortly after the beginning of the 18th century, disposed of, and coming before 1715 into Lord Grange's hand he made up titles to it on purchasing the various bonds, and he occupied the house in that year, when his elder brother, the Earl of Mar, was heading the rebellion. After Lord Grange's time it had a succession of owners, till acquired by Dr James Schaw before 1780, and occupied by him till his death, when by his will it was destined for the accommodation, maintenance, and education of poor boys. It was thus used till 1832, when a new and commodious house, in the old English style, was built, at a cost of nearly £3000, within the park near by. And this again, the Schaw funds being otherwise appropriated in 1881 under the Endowed Hospitals Act, has been recently rented by Miss Murray's trustees for the charitable upbringing and training of girls for domestic service, of whom there are already 40 in the institution.—Ord. Sur., sh. 33, 1863.
(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)
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| Feature Description: | "a village" (ADL Feature Type: "populated places") |
| Administrative units: | Prestonpans ScoP East Lothian ScoCnty |
| Place: | Prestonpans |
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