IN 1800, Gilbert, younger brother of Robert Burns, moved with his wife and children from Dinning in Dumfriesshire to East Lothian to take up the job of farm manager for Captain John Dunlop. Within five years he had become
factor of Lord Blantyre's estate, Lennoxlove near Haddington. The house that went with the job was spacious enough to provide a home for four other members of the family, his mother, his two unmarried sisters, Annabella and Agnes, and Bess, the poet's daughter by a servant-girl, ''dear-bought Bess'' as her father had called her.
On the A6137 that skirts the Lennoxlove estate the site of Gilbert's house is marked by a cairn. A hundred yards along and a few steps down from the roadside we found the Burns Family Well, restored in 1932 by William Baxter, FSA and inscribed:
In noble tribute to her
Who not only gave a son to Scotland
But to the whole world.
On the same road we came upon the village of Bolton - little more than a hamlet with four names on the war memorial for the Second World War and double that for the First. No street, no shop, just an old farmhouse and a barn with a doocot from which we heard the soft coo-ing of pigeons - or it could have been doves; an ancient church, an imposing manse and the cemetery. We opened the gate and went in and soon found the tombstone erected by Gilbert Burns in memory of his mother and of five of his children who pre-deceased him.
Isabella died ''in the 7th year of her age'', Agnes was 15, Janet 18, and a daughter of 20 and a son of 25 both died in 1827, just a few months before Gilbert's death. His sister, Annabella, is buried in the same grave, but what of the other one, Agnes? At 42 years of age she got married for the first time, to one of Gilbert's farm labourers - but the boy made good, and the couple moved to Ireland when he got the job of land-stewart on the estate of a Mr Matthew Fortescue. Agnes died without issue and was buried in Dundalk.
Lennoxlove, now the home of the Duke of Hamilton, is open to the public. Once the seat of the notorious ''Red John'' the Duke of Lauderdale, who virtually ruled Scotland on behalf of Charles II, the house consists of a massive keep altered and extended, notably by Lorimer. When the Duke of Hamilton bought the house in 1946 it was appropriate that he should bring to his new home Mary Queen of Scots memorabilia from Hamilton Palace. William Maitland, Mary's Secretary and adviser had been brought up in Lennoxlove (then called Lethington) and the head of the house of Hamilton, James, Earl of Arran and Duke of Chatelherault, was the Queen's Regent for a time.
Today visitors to Lennoxlove can see Mary's death mask and the silver casket which contained the famous ''casket letters'' implicating her in the plot to murder Darnley.
More modern memorabilia at Lennoxlove relate to Rudolf Hess's ill-fated attempt to meet the 14th Duke of Hamilton and the 14th Duke's flight over Everest in 1933.
On one Saturday every May there are informal religious services held throughout the day in the family chapel at Lennoxlove. The worshippers take part in a pilgrimage which is believed to be the largest ecumenical event in Scotland. Initiated in 1971 largely by Patrick Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale, it starts at St Mary's Church in the picturesque village of Whitekirk, 11 miles from Haddington. A nearby well with allegedly miraculous powers of healing brought to Whitekirk a young nobleman, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, later to be Pope Pius II. His arrival in Scotland was precipitated by a shipwreck at Dunbar from where he walked barefoot through ice and snow to Whitekirk. The well has gone, the ancient church remains, but the interior dates from 1917 when it had to be completely restored after a serious fire - started by suffragettes.
These days the pilgrims travel by car, hike, jog or bike it to St Mary's Church, Haddington where Pastor Jack Glass and his supporters are sure to be waiting to engage the ecumenically minded in lively debate.
All but destroyed during the Siege of Haddington that was a part of the ''Rough Wooing'', St Mary's was not restored until the 1970s. It is the largest parish church in Scotland. The sixteenth-century Lauderdale Aisle has a chapel set aside for ecumenical worship.
At the last count there were 284 listed buildings in Haddington. The town has also had its share of famous sons: John Knox, of course, and two lesser mortals who might have elicited his grudging approval - Samuel Smiles, author of Self-Help and John Brown, author of The Self-Interpreting Bible.
A few miles to the north-east of Haddington, Preston Mill is worth a visit. A water-driven meal mill, it is owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It was restored by the Trust in the 1960s with assistance from Ranks Hovis McDougall. The cluster of buildings with mellow sandstone walls and red pantiled roofs has always attracted artists, notably the colony including Robert Noble and William Miller Frazer who lived in East Linton at the turn of the century when the village was known as ''the Scottish Barbizon''.
A footpath that crosses the river Tyne leads to Phantassie Doocot, acquired by the Trust in 1962. Phantassie Farm was the birthplace of John Rennie, the engineer who designed London Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. On his death he was interred in St Paul's Cathedral but a memorial was erected to him in East Linton in 1931.
Doocots enabled landowners to indulge in pigeon pie in winter but they wreaked havoc on the crops of tenant farmers everywhere - indeed ownership of a colombier was one of the droits de seigneur ''guillotined'' by the French revolutionaries. In its heyday the Phantassie Doocot had living accommodation for 500 pairs of pigeons.
The arrival of the turnip as winter fodder put most dovecots out of business, but in Scotland it was widely believed that the destruction of a doocot was unlucky and many remain, especially in East Lothian which had an unusually large number of small but prosperous estates.
From south to north East
Lothian slopes from the Pentlands and the Lammermuirs - grand territory for hill-walkers - across rich agricultural land to the coastal shelf.
The coastline is varied too, from the sand dunes and sandy beaches of Gullane and North Berwick to cliffs and clifftop castles guarding the entrance to the Firth of Forth. From Tantallon Castle the ''Red'' Douglases, Earls of Angus, pursued their vendetta against their sworn enemies, the ''Black'' Douglases.
This picturesque stretch of Scotland's coast is peaceful nowadays, though golfers who have watched the ''giants'' do battle on East Lothian's splendid championship courses might
not agree.
Incidentally, a Lothians and Edinburgh Golf Pass is available until the end of the year, giving discounts on rounds at 19
courses including Gullane, North Berwick and Musselburgh Links - where the first-ever organised game is said to have been played, in 1672. For general tourist
information and details of the Lothians and Edinburgh Golf Pass: telephone 0131 473 3800.
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