Remains found near a stately home in East Lothian are human, police have said.
Officers were alerted to the discovery near the entrance of Gosford House, Longniddry, by a member of the public at 6.30pm on Sunday.
Experts have now positively identified the remains as human and their recovery and a detailed examination of the area will now take place.
Police Scotland say the death is being treated as unexplained and are working to identify them.
Detective Superintendent Pat Campbell said: "We are in the very early stages of this investigation, to recover the remains, identify the deceased and inform their family, and establish the circumstances of the death.
"The recovery will be a painstaking process and officers and scientific experts will be in the area doing this work over the coming days.
"I would not wish to cause any unnecessary distress to families or anyone who is waiting for news of a missing loved one and my officers will be in contact with the next of kin of any person who becomes relevant to the investigation.
"The area where the remains have been found, including the A198, will remain cordoned off whilst we conduct our inquiries and I would like to thank the public for their patience during this time."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel