232 Report of Meetings for 1880, by James Hardy. 



accidentally hanged. See Club's Proc. vol. vi., p. 370. Green- 

 knowe Tower, on tbe opposite side of tbe railway, was tben 

 visited. The tower is built on a small plateau in the midst of a 

 moss, and at one time must have been nearly surrounded by 

 water. The foundations are much older than the superstructure, 

 the turrets at the corners being comparatively modern. The 

 outhouses have been cleared away, with the advantage of ren- 

 dering the building completely obvious. It has a patched ap- 

 pearance close at hand, but is a picturesque object from different 

 points among the well-grown trees of the park. It is a square 

 keep almost entire, measuring 34 feet east and west, by 36 feet ; 

 constructed of red sandstone and basalt. The windows are of a 

 modern square-headed type. As it now stands most of it was 

 built by the Seytons or Setons. Over the doorway are cut two 

 shields with coats of arms, with the initials J.S. and I.E., and 

 the date 1581. The arms on the one shield are quarterly three 

 crescents of the first and fourth, and three scutcheons of the second 

 and third. These are the arms of Seton of Touch. The second 

 shield bears three crescents, which are equally the arms of the 

 Setons as of the Edmonstones. From the Seytons it passed by 

 purchase to the Pringles of Stichel, and became the inheritance 

 of the excellent Walter Pringle of Greenknowe, well-known 

 from his "Memoirs." In the Appendix to the edition of this 

 book by the Pev. Walter Wood, Elie, there is a history of the 

 possessors of this property. The tower was occupied all the days 

 of the Pringles, and Mr Fairholme brought his English wife 

 there, but she could not become reconciled to the rude and in- 

 convenient old mansion ; this induced them to repair to Leam- 

 ington, where they lived all their time. The pasture still shews 

 by the lines of the old ditches and fence backs, the manner in 

 which it had been subdivided. Flowers had lent their adorn- 

 ment. In early spring snowdrops are exceedingly plentiful 

 round the building. There was an inner as distinct from an 

 outer garden; and Walter Pringle in 1663, pointedly refers to 

 '' the plum-tree on the north side of the garden-door," as being 

 witness to the earnestness of his devotions."^' There is still the 

 line of the winding avenue between two ranks of trees that led 

 up to the tower. The trees in the pasture were Scotch elm, ash, 

 plane tree, lime and willow. The grass has no great feeding 

 * Select Biographies : Wodrow Society, i., p. 438. 



