On Chirnside Parish : the Estate of Edington. 99 



had slain the prettiest man in Berwickshire." [According 

 to another account it was Foulden fair day.] When he 

 arrived at Berwick, some accounts say that he threw himself 

 over the bridge into the Tweed, and then perished ; others 

 say that he went to the south, and drowned himself in the 

 sea at Sunderland. The house of David Spence has long 

 since been demolished ; but a large pear tree, which grew in 

 his garden, is still preserved. A late minister of Cockburns- 

 Dath was of this family. The estate of West Mains is now 

 incorporated with Ninewells. 



Soon after this we hear of an Archibald Lauder of Eding- 

 ton, who seems to have been Sir George's brother ; but he 

 does not appear to have inherited the estate for any length 

 of time. 



[In that age of unconcern, county events were not commem- 

 orated ; but a notice in Fountainhall's " Decisions " (ii., p. 104) 

 which is almost as useful and entertaining as a chronicle, fills up 

 a blank, and corroborates the traditional story. "July 12, 1700. 

 Sir George Lauder of Iddington being deceased, and his immedi- 

 ate younger brother and apparent heir being abroad as chirurgeon 

 to a ship in the Indies, there is a bill given into the Lords by my 

 Lord Secretary Carmichael, and other creditors of the said Sir 

 George, craving that, till the return of the heir, or certioration 

 to be given him, they would appoint Mr. Lauder, the youngest 

 brother, to be factor, for shearing the crop, disposing of the 

 stock on the ground, and uplifting the rents, &c. The Lords 

 demurred, because the estate was not incumbered , . . yet 

 the case being extraordinary, they interposed their authority to 

 his being factor only for one year, in which time the apparent 

 heir might return," &c] 



Mr. Hay, the proprietor of Edington in 1745, was confined 

 in Berwick jail for some time upon a suspicion of favouring 

 the Pretender. 



[This barony was protected by an ancient castle-house or fortlet, 

 of which no vestige remains, which is mentioned in 1497, when 

 it belonged to the Idingtons and not the Lauders, as Mr. Carr, 

 by a slip in his " History," p. 38, erroneously indicates. The 

 ground which environed the castle was denominated the 

 "Bastle-dikes," and is thus described by the Rev. Dr. Anderson 

 in 1795. " Of alJ the grounds in the parish, that now called the 

 Bastel-dikes, where shaped stones, and such as are used for 

 cornices and lintels of doors, have been often turned up by the 

 plough, is naturally the most fenced and inaccessible. It runs 

 out on the west end, like a promontory, upon the broad stream 

 of Whittadder, which there makes a turn upon its north banks, 



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