132 British Urns found at Hoprig. By Jas. Hardy. 



scanty wiry heather as a covering, and became elevated at its 

 upper verge with a low ridge, in which were three eminences 

 called from the scrubby heather which they produced, the Birny 

 Hills.* The general soil is chiefly a thin sand, gravel and mould 

 intermixed ; underlaid by a yellow till, in which where moist, 

 bog-iron ore is developed. The tops of the low flat hills are 

 collections of gravel and sand in layers : there is first the surface 

 soil, then gravel, then a rough river sand, and beneath it a finer 

 sand, and finally the yellow till. On the west, at the outer side 

 of the field, and beyond the ridge which there flattens out, lies a 

 strip of depressed swampy ground now planted with firs for the 

 most part, but formerly filled with stagnant water in winter, and 

 called the Black Dub. This water is now reduced in volume b} r 

 a ditch intersecting it ; the section of which reveals a very fine 

 yellow clay, or " ha' clay " formerly used for laying clay floors, 

 which had been turned to advantage by the old inhabitants of 

 the land in the manufacture of fictile ware. It was in the 

 flattish area, which is 45 feet in diameter, on the top of the 

 Middle Birny Hill that the graves were found. (See plan, Plate 

 I. ) The soil is pretty free all over of small stones, but a con- 

 siderable number were assembled here at the north eastern end 

 of the area, as if for a purpose, probably for a cairn. When 

 first broken up, two leases back, it is possible that the bulkier 

 stones were carted off for building purposes. The first cultivators 

 had not gone deep enough to penetrate the mystery of the hillock, 

 which was probably crowned by a cairn with lesser tumuli within 

 its environs. 



That it had been devoted by the ancient inhabitants to 

 sepulchral ends was first revealed on the 23d March, 1887, while 

 the ground was receiving a deep furrow for a potato crop. The 

 plough struck an obstruction, which on examination was the 

 bottom of an urn, which it fractured. With their plough staves 

 two of the men raised the urn, and when they had satisfied their 

 curiosity, unfortunately left it lying without informing their 

 master. At night, however, a number of thoughtless boys 

 collected and smashed the venerable relic ; but the tenant, Mr 



* Birny, " Covered with the scorched stems of heath that has been set 

 on fire " — " having a rough or stunted stem." — Jamieson. An East Lothian 

 farm in the vicinity is called Birnieknowes. Birn, " dry heathy pasture, 

 reserved for the lambs after they have been weaned." Welsh, bryn, a hill. 

 To birn lambs, to put them on a poor dry pasture. 



