OS1/11/2/18A

Continued entries/extra info

OS1/11/2/18A
Parish of Corstorphine 18a
In the new Stat. Acct. there is notice of many remains of internments being found in the
vicinity of the villa of Hanley these remains were chiefly stone coffins containing human bones
but no satisfactory account is given as to the cause of such great numbers of graves. The writter
further says " The only (fight) battle we can ? to have to taken place in this neighbourhood
is the Gogar fight of 27th August 1650 which has been already briefly described but it
only lasted from 3 to 6 p.m of that day and the deaths on both sides probably did not
amount to 100 men. From the descriptions of this fight contained in ?Abdgsons Memoirs and in
the letters of Cromwell and his officers printed in the same volume this field appears at that period
to have been full of bogs and in a very wild and uncultivated state; indeed, it was for this reason that
General Leslie is said to have chosen it for his encampment. After this engagement
it is not unlikely that the dead would be interned where they fell and no more natural mode
of internment could have been adopted than to collect the flag stones from the bed of the
River Almond a distance of 1 1/2 mile and from there into coffins. This is rendered more
probable when it is considered that no wood existed here at that period and that when it
was required even in small quantities it was always procured from Leith as appears from
several entries in the parish register about 1652. This hypothesis perhaps would not account
for a cemetery so extensive but when once used as a burying ground it may have been continued
in use as such during the years 1650 and 1651 while the English were in the parish; or its use

Transcriber's notes

word (fight) has been scored out