26 Craigmillar and its Environs. 



wards became the property of John de Capella, of 

 whom Httle is known ; and from his family it passed in 

 1374 to that of the Prestons of Gorton, who were an 

 important family in Scotland at that time— Sir Symon 

 Preston having obtained from King Robert II. a charter 

 of the lands of " Cragmelor," in the county of Edin- 

 burgh, on the resignation of William de Capella. The 

 Prestons were possessors of Craigmillar for a period 

 of 300 years. Their name is derived from the barony 

 of Prestoun or Priest's town, now Gorton, on the 

 South Esk, Mid-Lothian. It may be of interest to 

 mention that Sir William de Preston, Knight, was 

 one of the barons of Scotland summoned to Norham 

 Castle by King Edward I., in the competition for the 

 crown betwixt Baliol and Bruce in 1291. On this 

 occasion a large number of the nobility and clergy 

 assembled to decide the question, on the Scottish 

 side of the Tweed, upon a large open plain called 

 Upsettlington, now included in the beautiful wooded 

 policies of Ladykirk. Mr David Beveridge, in 

 his ' Culross and Tulliallan,' states that Sir John de 

 Preston, Knight, was taken prisoner with David II. 



