The Life of Fred Archer 57 
drove down the Queensferry Road in the mailcoach, and 
Barnton is being rapidly cut up with building sites and golfing 
greens for the wealthy lawyers of Edinburgh. 
"The thought of Lanercost and the I'Ansons, with the 
notices of the death of Mr. Mathew Dawson, were the cause of 
a recent pilgrimage to Gullane, the birthplace of three of the 
famous training brothers, Mathew, John, and Joseph — Thomas 
Dawson, the elder brother, having been^born at Bogside, Irvine, 
Ayrshire, in 1809, when George Dawson, the father, was still 
in the service of Lord Montgomerie. Gullane is, alas ! no 
longer the Newmarket of Scotland, for training on the grand 
bit of turf on the Haddington shore of the Firth of Forth is 
entirely forbidden. The last time Mr, Mathew Dawson was 
in Scotland was to speak against the interdict, and he journeyed 
down to the old family home to see and chat with some of the 
old folks and have a last reverent look at his father's grave in 
the old kirkyard. 
" Stamford Hall, in which Mathew Dawson first saw the 
Ught, has changed since old Thomas Dawson disposed of the 
property to an Edinburgh commercial gentleman, and the 
old red-tiled stables have long since disappeared in which, 
seventy years ago, were trained for Lord Kelburne, Reviewer, 
which ran unplaced in 1827 for the St. Leger, the curiously- 
named Purity, by Octavian out of Hellcat, who won the 
All-Aged Stakes at Doncaster the same year, and others. 
Around Goose Common, where the younger members of the 
racing stud were exercised till ready to be put into harder work 
up on Gullane Moor by the sea, there are still a few old natives 
who remember the place when it was in every way entitled 
to be called the Newmarket of Scotland. 
" Following the track of the horses as they used to go 
out to work we were soon on the old course, a bit of splendid 
turf now entirely monopolised by the golfer. Gullane Hill, 
from which trials were watched many a time in the old days, 
we found crowned with a perfect forest of Scotch thistles. 
