Antiquities of Buittle. 29 



parish was that of a well near the ruins of the old parish church, 

 which was called Sancomel. Reference was also made to the 

 round tower of Orchardton, to the burial cairn at Courthill, the 

 remains of a vitrified fort on Castlegower, and the old mill at 

 Buittle, a venerable building which had received its death-blow 

 from the modern sanitary inspector. This mill, Mr Tarbet 

 observed, appeared to have enjoyed some kind of royal grant. A 

 month ago, he mentioned, there was found on Munches Hill a 

 bronze implement called a battle-axe, but more resembling a chisel, 

 which now lay at Munches. In the church an old custom sur- 

 vived in the use of shortbread at the communion. Some supposed 

 that this was used because it was unleavened, but he thought the 

 real reason would be found in a desire to use on this sacred occa- 

 sion the finer food, at a time when only two kinds were made — 

 the coarse bread and the shortbread. An odd story was told of 

 Mr Crosbie, who was minister of the parish in the early decades of 

 the century. A child found by the way-side was taken to the 

 manse. The minister thought it proper that it should be baptised, 

 and resolved to open the Bible and bestow on it the first name on 

 which his eye lighted. This was Nebuchadnezzar. Whether 

 influenced by the thought that the child had already had enough 

 of grass, or by the general absurdity of the name, he resolved to 

 give the child instead the name nearest to it in sound, and called 

 it Ebenezer. He had the story from the old woman who brought 

 Ebenezer up. 



Rev. W. Andson proposed a vote of thanks to Mr Tarbet for 

 his interesting paper. 



Mr Rutherford of Jardington, in seconding the motion, said 

 the generally accepted theory about the round towers was that 

 they were watch towers. Touching on the subject of the mills, 

 he said it would not be an exceptional favour that was conferred 

 on Buittle, for by an old Act of the Scottish Parliament the people 

 were required to send all their grain to the public mills to be 

 ground, and were forbidden under penalties to use the hand 

 querns.* That was the reason why so many of the querns were 



* Mr Rutherford has since forwarded the following extract from 

 Wilson's "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland" : — The quern was employed 

 down to the 13th century, when legal means were employed to compel 

 the people to abandon it for the large water mills then introduced. In 

 1284, in the reign of Alex. III., it was provided that " Na man sail pre- 



