438 Report of Meetings for 1881. By Jas. Hardy. 



In proceeding to Stenton, after tlie junction of the Biel with 

 the Dunbar road, the field on the right belonging to Meiklerig 

 farm, was that in which the Urn, Flint-knife, and Whetstone 

 were taken out of two cists disclosed in demolishing a cairn on 

 the 20th January, 1878, of which there is an account in the 

 present volume of Proceedings, pp. 101-104. A further notice of 

 this discovery, illustrated with beautiful wood-cuts, is contained 

 in the " Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries," 

 1879-80, pp. 220, 221. From this it is evident that the urn was 

 the occupant of one cist, and the flint-knife and whet-stone ac- 

 companied the cranium, &c., in the other. The shattered urn has 

 been re-constructed, and is now with the other relics preserved 

 in the Society's Museum. A hollow, visible from the road, re- 

 presents the site of ihis ancient cemetery. The field is termed 

 the Eood- well-field, and the structure that covered what was 

 probably once a sacred fount, still called the •' Eood- Well," was 

 examined by the Club previous to entering Stenton village. On 

 its summit were two detached stones ; one might have been the 

 basis of a pillar (possibly a portion of the shaft of the village 

 cross), the other was conjectured to be the finial of a gable of the 

 old church at Stenton, and since the meeting, it has, I am in- 

 formed, been remanded to its legitimate position. Nothing is 

 recorded about this well, but Mr Marjoribanks stated that the 

 diminutive space of ground overgrown with nettles around it be- 

 longs to the Duke of Eoxburghe, in whose family at one time lay 

 the right of presentation to the living of Stenton. Stenton church 

 like every other of early date, would be placed under a saintly 

 guardian, to whom it was dedicated. Had this well merely in- 

 dicated a cross that once stood here, the word cross would have 

 survived, and it would have been named the Cross or Cors-well. 

 Being however, designated a "rood" and not a "cross" well, 

 although the words are equivalent, it possibly refers to the " Holy 

 Eood " ; and being inalienably annexed to the advowson, it is 

 not unreasonable that it points to the church here, being under 

 the protection of that symbol — the " Sanctse Crucis." In 1669, 

 when warrant was granted to John, Lord Belhaven, to hold two 

 annual fairs, and a weekly market at Stenton, so utterly had the 

 remembrance of any sanctity about the place been efi'aced, that 

 in the Act of Parliament sanctioning the proposal, blanks are 

 left for the names to be adhibited to the fairs, these not uncom- 

 monly being dubbed after saints.*" 



*Acts Pari. Scot. vii. p. 112, appendix; viii. p. 442, 



