REPORT OP THE MEETINGS FOR 1897 173' 



Beltonford siding, was noisily circling in playful flight. 

 Beltonford Inn, an appendage of the Belton estate, is now con- 

 verted into dwelling houses. It figures in the Autobiography 

 of Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk, when the camp of Sir John 

 Cope at Dunbar was visited by him and his co-volunteers pre- 

 vious to the Battle of Prestonpans. An account of the Club's 

 visit to Helton House, Biel, and Stenton, is recorded in Vol. ix., 

 pp. 430 39, with supplementary notes in Vol. x., pp. -205-8 of 

 the Club's History, which dispenses with further reference to this 

 part of the route till we pass Stenton. With the exception of a 

 short interval before reaching that village we had well-timbered 

 parks — Belton, Biel, and Whittingehame — on our right till 

 near Garvald. The farm of Pitcox, under its old form Pitcokys, 

 gave its name to the whole parish of Stenton at one period. 

 Ecclesiastically it was a rectory annexed by Patrick Earl of March 

 in 1342, to the Collegiate Church of Dunbar. Afterwards several 

 of the annexations were formed into independent parishes, and of 

 these Spott and Stenton still remain. The ruins of the old rectory 

 buildings are said to have been in existence half a century ago. 



The party dismounted from the carriages at the Rood Well, 

 near the village of Stenton. It seemed to have been undergoing 

 some recent repairs. A piece of folk-lore current in the neigh- 

 bourhood was that the tenure of the Biel estate depended on the 

 keeping up of the Well. In Martin's Reminiscences of East 

 Lothian, Vol. ii., p. 74, the apex of the construction is described 

 as being in the form of a cardinal's hat ; and a story is told of a 

 Stenton person who, when going away to a foreign land, 

 deposited in the cardinal's hat some silver coins " for luck." 

 When he returned many years after he found his coins still there ! 



There was no need to resume carriages, as Stenton Church 

 was close by. In its design, its interior and exterior appearance, 

 and its commanding situation, it is one of the most beautiful in 

 the county. Great care is apparently bestowed upon its 

 surroundings. The much esteemed and ever courteous minister 

 of the parish (Rev. George Marjoribanks) was absent on a 

 holiday, but had made excellent arrangements for the Club 

 seeing whatever was of interest. His locum tenens— the Rev. 

 W. B. Ritchie — pointed out the structural changes in the 

 church since the Club's last visit, including the memorial 

 window erected by the Rev. Mr Marjoribanks to the memory of 

 his parents. After the erection of this memorial window, it was 

 felt that the beautiful tinting would be better brought out were 

 w 



