1894 525 to 547 - Electric Scotland

or, Northern Notes and Queries. 7 1
caves in the rock upon which Hawthornden mansion is picturesquely
posed. Not being aware of any existing description of the Newbattle
facts connected
specimen, and having noted some hitherto unpublished
with the famous group of excavations under the mansion of the
Drummonds on the North Esk, I have to crave space in your columns for
an observation or two that may be of some interest to readers who find
the politics of the day a dreary walk through corrupted sewage. The
Newbattle cave is in a low cliff on the right bank of the South Esk,
about 200 yards or so above the family residence of the Marquis of
Lothian, which is on the left bank of the small river. The work consists
of an outer and inner excavation, connected by a passage. The outer cave
is entered by a doorway 2 feet 9 inches in width and 6 feet 9 inches in
height. Getting through this, the explorer is in the outer cave, 20 feet
9 inches in length, 5 feet 9 inches in width, and with the roof 8 feet
7 inches above the level of the floor. Its longer axis is approximately
north and south, and from the inner end an opening, 7 feet 2 inches in
length, 3 feet 3 inches in width, and 8 feet high, in the roof leads to the
second cave. The longer axis of this one is east and west, and it is
though very rudely quadrangular in form. The length is 16 feet, the
width at the east end 9 feet 3 inches, and at the western end 8 feet
3 inches, the roof 8 feet above the floor level. This ground-plan is quite
enough to prove that the double cave was never made by any natural
force, and the whole interior, excepting small portions of the roofing here
and there, from which thin flakes have fallen by natural weathering, is
strongly marked by the scars of some excavating tool, showing that the
cavities have been dug out in the solid sandstone beds, which are of the
carboniferous formation of the geologist. In this respect it agrees in type
of workmanship with upwards of thirty artificial caves on the Ale, the
Kale, the Oxnam, the Jed, and the Teviot in Roxburghshire, and with
'
Wallace Cave '
at Gorton, and the Hawthornden caves on the North Esk.
In none of these latter do the side walls join the end walls nor the floors
on a right angle, the junction always being rudely rounded, and this is
also the case in the Newbattle excavation. In many of the South of
Scotland specimens there are openings from one cave into a connected
one, sometimes at the side, sometimes at one end, as we have it in the
Newbattle specimen. The length and boldness of the scars sometimes
up to eight inches in length is a striking feature of the south country
caves, and so it is in this South Esk example. Of the remaining doorways
in the southern area for most of them have disappeared owing to
natural denudation of the cliffs 2 feet 8 inches and 2 feet 9 inches is the
width, and this one on the South Esk is 2 feet 9 inches, and that at
Gorton, at the narrowest portion of the weathered margin, is also 2 feet
9 inches. One still perfect doorway at Sunlaws is 2 feet 8 inches in
width. This may be no more than coincidence, but I should say it is
more likely to have arisen from the various excavators working on a
common rule. The analogies mentioned between the caves of the south
and this one on the South Esk convince me that all have been made by
the same tribe or people, probably at some prehistoric period.
From the west side wall of the outer Newbattle cave an opening, 4 feet
6 inches in height and 3 feet 6 inches in width, has been carried on a
gentle curve and horizontally into the walls to a length of 300 feet. The
tool-markings all round the excavation are bold, but the scars are not half