[51] The Logans of Restalrig quartered the arms of Ramsay of
Dalhousie with their own. They bore 1st and 4th, or, three piles
issuing from a chief, and conjoined in base, sable, for Logan; 2nd
and 3rd, argent, an eagle displayed with two heads sable, beaked and
membered gules, for Ramsay.
We are now close to the outskirts of Leith, so we will turn back and
take the first road to the right, which soon brings us out on the
London Road, not far from Abbeyhill.
WALK V.
Corstorphine--The Cat-Stane--Gogar--Hatton--Saughton
Hall--Dalry.
Our walk to-day takes us in an entirely different direction, and to
fields as yet unexplored. With our faces to the setting sun, we leave
Edinburgh by the great west road, which for the first few miles is
so cramped and hemmed in by modern houses that all recollections of
the past are effaced. By degrees, as we pass Murrayfield, the villas
grow fewer, the gardens and parks which lie on the hill slopes to
our right get larger, but there is a sadly short interval of green
fields and hedgerows, before we enter the rapidly growing village of
Corstorphine, which threatens soon to lose its identity, and become a
mere suburb of Edinburgh. How changed since the day when
On Ravelston cliffs, and on Clermiston Lee
Died away the wild war-notes of bonnie Dundee.
Clermiston Lee still rises steep and bare behind the village, but the
old castle of the Foresters, which then stood below it, has vanished;
only a few stones remaining to show where it once was. Gone, too,
is their town house in Forester's Wynd,--gone is their very name!
The proud and ancient title of Lord Forester of Corstorphine has
passed by inheritance to an English earl, and is merged in the higher
honours of Verulam. The tombs alone of the old knights remain in the
beautiful church, which, altered and mutilated as it is, still bears
traces of its past glory.
The first Forester who possessed Corstorphine was Sir Adam. He was
a gallant knight, who fought by the side of the Douglas at Homildon
Hill, and fell a captive into Hotspur's hands. He was ransomed, but
three years later (1405) he died at Corstorphine, full of years and
honours. His son, Sir John, was Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and
Master of the Household to James I. In his time the church was built
(1444), and erected into a collegiate foundation, with a provost,
four prebendaries, and two singing boys. It has been conjectured that
one of the first provosts was the "Gentill Rowll," whom Dunbar, in
his beautiful "Lament of the Makaris," bemoans as one of those whom
Death "has tane out of this countrie."
He has tane Rowll of Abirdeen
And gentill Rowll of Corstorphyne;
Twa bettir fallowis did no man sie,
_Timor mortis conturbat me_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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