Report of Meetings for 1 885. By Jas. Hardy. 21 



parish. Certain it is, that Oxnam is inscribed upon it ; but 

 whether it be the name of this parish, or of the founder, is not 

 determined." So writes the Rev. John Hunter in 1791 ; and he 

 adds that some said the bell was hung up in Crag Tower, not 

 realising that the fortress belonged to the lay proprietor. (Sin- 

 clair's Stat. Acct. of Scotland, xi. p. 330, note). 



There is a "leaping on stone" of sandstone steps at the 

 churchyard gate; to facilitate female riders getting on horse- 

 back. 



In the manse-garden a slab is erected, which has the figure of 

 a Calvary cross incised on it. It has no inscription. It stood 

 long at the vestry door. 



Descending from the church by a wet hollow, the company 

 reach Crag Tower, the old fortified residence of the proprietor of 

 the Manor ; one of whom as warden of the Middle Marches dates 

 a letter from it. It is situated on a peninsula. There has been 

 a moat encircling it. The approach to it from the west has been 

 from across the Oxnam and up the hollow, which, looks like an old 

 water course artificially trimmed. The dungeon of the Tower 

 was dangerous about 80 or 90 years ago, writes Mr Thomson. 

 " Boys were in the habit of dropping stones through the crevices 

 of the covering. An old man of 70 or more told me that when 

 a boy his father had told him that he had often done this." The 

 best account of this fortalice is contained in the old Statistical 

 Account, p. 330, note. "The Crag Tower was built on a rock 

 of some eminence on the E. side of Oxnam water, about 500 

 yards W. of the church. Within these 20 years (written in 1791) 

 it was a place of the same construction as Dolphinston Tower 

 and Mossburnf ord, being divided into small apartments by stone 

 partitions, with several vaulted apertures in the middle of the 

 walls, large enough for a small bed, but much stronger from its 

 natural situation, being surrounded with water on three sides. 

 In the memory of many now living, there was a pit in the middle 

 of it, which is said to have been a road cut through the rock to 

 the water, by which it was supplied when besieged. It is said 

 to have been surrounded on the accessible side with a strong 

 wall, within which the inhabitants of the neighbourhood used to 

 shut up their cattle, to prevent the plunderers from carrying 

 them off in the night." 



Below this again is a mound, reckoned to be artificial, where 

 local tradition says a knight in a silver chair is buried ; another 



