Highways and Byways in the Border: IllustratedLang, Andrew
History
Highways and Byways in the Border: Illustrated
Lang, Andrew
Scottish Borders (Scotland) -- Description and travel
build a hideous modern cottage, and I daresay some of the houses in the
immediate neighbourhood may be composed entirely of stones taken from
the old walls. The writer has not seen the Roman tombs which exist about
half a mile to the east of the camp. The largest of these is said to
have still two courses of stones standing, besides the flat stones of
the foundation. This tomb has in front a small carving, regarding which
Dr. Collingwood Bruce, in "The Roman Wall," suggests that it may have
been intended to represent "the head of a boar--the emblem of the
twentieth legion." The writer is given to understand that the carving
bears no resemblance whatever to the head of a boar. A coin of the
Emperor Alexander Severus was found in this tomb, together with a jar
containing calcined bones, and a coin of the Emperor Trajan was found in
the camp.
How many of Douglas's wounded, one wonders, were carried from the field
of battle over to Southdean, and, succumbing there to their wounds, were
buried at the church? Two or three years ago, when the ash-trees were
cut down and the grassy mound carted away that had so long concealed the
ruins of the old building, quantities of human bones were dug up within
and about the walls, some of the skulls showing unmistakably that
the owners had died no peaceful death. No doubt the main body of the
Scottish army would follow the dead Douglas to his tomb in Melrose
Abbey, and would therefore never come so far west as Southdean, but the
severely wounded would naturally be left wherever they could be attended
to. It is certain that the Southdean district was in old days much less
sparsely populated than is now the case; two important yearly fairs, for
instance, used formerly to be held at Lethem, (three miles nearer the
Border than Southdean,)--where also, on a knoll still called the Chapel
Knowe, was a chapel, subsidiary to the church of Southdean. These fairs
were for the sale of {166}"horse, nolt, sheep, fish, flesh, malt, meal,"
and all sorts of merchandise, and in the permit to hold the Fairs
Lethem is described as being "by reason of its situation, lying near the
Border, a very convenient and fit place for traffic and trade."
[Illustration: 0186]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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