Report of Meetings for 1880, by James Hardy. 215 



skirted, are two farms in Spott parish, and were from an earlj 

 period incorporated witli the estate of Easter Spott, but were 

 sold by an improvident laird ; of whom it is still reported by the 

 country people, that when he appeared, after parting with them, 

 at the king's levee in Edinburgh, the courtiers whispered : — 

 " Here comes the Laird of Spott, with two Broomhouses on his 

 back," which has become a proverb. Easter and Wester 

 Broomhouses had become the property of the Baillies of Loch- 

 end before Nov. 26, 1635 ; so that the saying has maintained a 

 long currency, and points to the first Sir Archibald Douglas of 

 Spott, who sold them to Sir James Baillie, one of the Lords of 

 the Secret Council. Near Easter Broomhouse an upright block 

 of sandstone is conspicuous in a field. This is not a rubbing- 

 stone, but an old boundary or funereal pillar, or the remnant of 

 an ancient judicial circle. In 1635, 1640, &c., title deeds speak 

 of the lands of Standarts, as being here ; and in 1645 there were 

 templar-lands in Spott called " Standand stain-rig," which may 

 either refer to this, or to some other similar obelisk. The green 

 banks on either side of the Brock or Spott water, as it flows 

 down by Easter Spott Mill, used to be a great haunt, within Mr 

 Gray's memory, of the Whin-chat {Saxicola Ruhetra). The 

 brook contains common trout. Leaving the conveyances at the 

 foot of Spott dean, on whose margins many of the slain in the 

 battle of the Doon-hill were buried, the company ascended it by 

 winding walks to the manor-house and garden. The dean is 

 cut sheer through the Old Eed Sandstone Conglomerate to a 

 great depth, and is less than a mile long. Like many of the 

 ravines in the conglomerate, there is little more space at the 

 bottom than what is suflB.cient for the passage of the burn — a 

 lively stream that rushes over many a tiny waterfall. At present 

 the dean is very beautiful ; the tall trees of beech and elm, with 

 which it is well studded, wear their freshest foliage ; and the 

 banks, where not too steep to admit of the retention of soil, were 

 covered with dense sheets of the tempting-looking, but disgust- 

 ingly scented. Allium ursinum, or Eamps (which some plucked, 

 expecting, much to their disappointment, to have in it laid hold 

 of a handful of Lily-of-the-Valley) ; as well as with other repre- 

 sentatives of native greenery that do not require special enrol- 

 ment. Among the declivities on the west side there is a great 

 deal of Hart's-tongue fern, of the Asplenium Trichomanes, and of 



