Luffness, more maps and more history.

Luffness the mill, the map and the remains.

The Seventeenth Century

For Scotland the seventeenth century was a time of much tragedy and transformation as it progressed from the medieval to the modern. This period of change is our starting point for a journey through the ages using maps¹ as our guide and the Luffness Mill area as our focus.

The first person we meet in this century is the mysterious Timothy Pont (1564- 1614). He produced the first detailed maps of Scotland². We know very little about his life but his maps went on to form the basis of the fifth volume of Joan Blaeu's first world atlas.

Joan Blaeu (c. 1599-1673) Lothian and Linlitquo published 1654.

The Dutch printers Joan Blaeu and his father Willem set out to beat their rivals by printing a monumental atlas of the world. They were supplied with cartographic and topographic information about particular countries through their many collaberators across Europe. In the case of Scotland, this was Sir John Scot of Scotstarvit who sent Blaeu, Pont's maps of Scotland. However not all were in a good enough state to be printed directly but required further information and more detail to be added. This was done by Robert Gordon of Straloch (1580-1661) and his son James Gordon of Rothiemay (c.1615-1686)³.

Luffness is depicted in the atlas on a map titled 'Lothian and Linlitquo' (illustration 1). Here we can see the old castles of the area depicted with fences or walls around them and although Luffness, Dirleton and Balencrief still have either castles or tower houses the one at 'Ervistoun' no longer exists. Ervistoun is probably Elvingston near Gladsmuir. The house that exists on the site now dates to 1837 but no physical evidence has been found for the earlier building which is thought to have dated to the medieval period⁴.

One odd touch is the row of red buildings stretching along the coast from Luffness.

Illustration 1: Joan Blaeu Lothian and Linlitquo published 1654.

The Hydrographicall mappe of Forth from the entry to ye Queens-ferry

An imprint of a map from 1683 by John Adair (ca. 1650-1722) shows Luffness with the interesting spelling of 'Lovenesse' (illustration 2). This is also the first time that I have seen a map that labels Aberlady Bay as 'hadington port'. Aberlady was indeed the port for the county town of Haddington until the trade moved to road or rail. Another first for this map is the attempt at showing topography of the area in depicting Gullane Hill.

Illustration 2: The Hydrographicall mappe of Forth from the entry to ye Queens-ferry / authore J. Adair. Imprint:[1683]

These 'Hydrographicall' maps were made to encourage foreign trade by reducing the losses to shipping that had often occurred on the Scottish coast. The maps were partly paid for by a tonnage levy placed on shipping although the funds from this proved insufficient for the completion of the maps⁵.

The hand drawn manuscript version of John Adair's 1682 map (illustration 3) shows the presence of mills which are indicated by the star symbol. This is the earliest cartographic evidence for the presence of a mill at Luffness. On an engraved version of 1736 (illustration 4) the mills are named and the word 'Peffer' makes it's first appearance.

Illustration 3: John Adair Map 1682, showing the Port of Haddington. The star symbol represents the location of a mill. This is the earliest evidence for the presence of a mill at Luffness.

Illustration 4: A map of East Lothian survey'd by J. Adair. Imprint: [Edinburgh : Cooper, ca. 1736]

Roads and Roy

Although the previous maps show the basic lay out of the area they would have proved quite limited if they were used as a tool for overland navigation. There just isn't the detail or accuracy required. However this was to change when the requirement for a map of Scotland that could be used by the military to quell any unrest in the hearts of restless natives. This came in the form of Roy's Military Survey of Scotland. The lowlands were surveyed between 1752-55.

Here for the first time are roads and field boundaries (illustration 5).

Illustration 5: Roy's Military Survey of Scotland, 1747-55

William Forrest and the county map.

The county maps were the most detailed portrayal of the landscape prior to the Ordance Survey. They were often at large scales of one and two miles to the inch, showing natural features such as relief, rivers, woodland and coastlines. A range of human settlements are shown and named for the first time, including many isolated farms and hamlets. The map also includes the name and title of the landowner. In the case of Luffness we can see that it is Colonel Hope. The Hope family bought Luffness in 1739⁶.

Illustration 6: William Forrest's Map of Haddingtonshire 1799

On William Forrest's 1799 map of Haddingtonshire (illustration 6) we see for the first time the 'Marle Loch'. The Marl was a calcium rich soil which was dug and spread on the surrounding fields in an attempt to make the soil less acidic and thereby increase fertility. The marl would have been dug in the winter and left for the frost to break it down before being harrowed in come the spring time. The practice ended with the wide spread use of artificial fertilisers. This resulted in the unused pits filling with water.

The lime quarry would probably provided lime was for building mortar, limewash, lime plaster or mixed with clay as a binder. However, apart from prestige structures such as churches, castles and bridges, most buildings would not have been of stone but of timber or wattle, reeds, and thatch, and coated or infilled with various combinations of clay and lime⁷.

Let us take a closer look at Luffness Mill which is now detailed on the map for the first time (illustration 7). The map shows us the orrentation of the mill pond and how it was fed by two 'mill lades' and a 'tail race' which allowed the spent water from the mill wheel to flow to the Peffer. The mill dam was constructed to raise the water level in the pond and provide a motive force for the wheel. Sluices would have controled the flow of water into the mill lades.

Illustration 7: Luffness Mill in detail on William Forrest's Map of Haddingtonshire 1799

Ordnance Survey.

The progress towards a more detailed accurate map of Britain was made more of a certainty with the foundation of the Ordnance Survey in 1791. The primary triangulation of Scotland started in 1814 but it wasn't until 1859 that most of the Scottish lowlands were complete⁸. We really get the most detail yet with the production of the first comprehensive topographic survey of Scotland at the six-inch to the mile scale (illustration 8).

Illustration 8: Ordnance Survey Haddingtonshire, Sheet 4 Survey date: 1853 Publication date: 1854

These wind blown bents are not the well manicured fairways of today which are lush in their out of season verdant pop-up-sprinklered pampering. No, these slopes will have to wait another 40 years before the foundation of Luffness Golf Club.

However there is evidence of another sport and that is curling. The rectangular object to the left of the foot brdge is a curling pond. This feature can be seen to this day although any curling has long since ceased. It is described n the Aberlady Bay Local Nature Reserve Annual Report 2009/10 as '….an old man-made pool that has been colonised by a wide variety of marshland plants. It features a number of scarce species, some of which are rare elsewhere on the Reserve, which contribute towards making the area unique in the context of the rest of the site.'. I suppose that climate change has made outdoor curling a dim and distant memory almost to the point of incrdulity that it ever actually happened.

On the map, we can follow the old path up the hill to the site of many ancient finds that is Gala Law. Here we see that a Whinstone Quarry is in operation. Whinstone is a quarrying name for any hard dark rock such as the igneous rock basalt. Basalt was porved in the past to be chemically identical to lava⁹. It is generally used for road stone or dry stone walls.

If we come down the road the first buildings we come to are Luffness Mill. Let us take a closer look (illustration 9).

Illustration 9: Ordnance Survey Haddingtonshire, Sheet 4 Survey date: 1853 Publication date: 1854

Here we can see the sluices which would have controlled the water level. There are some remains of sluices in the woods to the south of the map and the course of the old 'Mill Lead' can still be seen.

Illustration 10: Some remains of a sluice where the original southern sluice was located.

Illustration 11: The remains of the southern mill lead as photographed in 2013.

The 1854 map labels Luffness Mill as a 'Saw Mill' and given it's location you would believe it to be water driven. At this stage it would look like the mill at Luffness was a water driven saw mill. The round building beside it is listed by Historic Scotland as a 'kiln' and they describe it thus;

'1820-30. Detached circular kiln. Random rubble, walls, circa 10ft high with arched draw vent at ground to W now blocked, window opening close under eaves to E. Inside walls taper to ground. Polygonal pantiles to roof, ventilator missing. Formerly used to dry timber for a sawmill (OS Map 1854) which was probably located to the S. Currently in poor condition. Similar in form to Seton Mill Kiln, Tranent parish.'¹⁰.

Having spent a lot of time in the kiln as a child I find it hard to see how they would have fitted much wood inside, never mind how they would have got it in there in the first place.

What would have been much more use on an estate would have been a kiln to dry grain. It would have been essential to dry the corn before milling it, especially in Scotland's damp climate. The kiln does look very much like those at Seton Mill (illustration 10) or Preston Mill (illustration 11), both of which were corn mills.

Illustration 12: John R Hume View from SW showing part of WNW and SSW fronts of mill with kiln in background SC710583 Copyright RCAHMS

Illustration 13: William Notman View of Seton Mill, East Lothian. DP075659 Copyright

Now have a look an an old postcard image of Luffness Mill (illustration 12). I find the similarities between the corn mill kilns and the wood drying kiln at Luffness to be quite supportive of my theory that Luffness' real purpose was for drying grain.

Illustration 14: Old postcard of Luffness Mill

Illustration 15: The kiln at Luffness Mill in 1985

Illustration 16: The kiln in 1989 showing a blocked vent at the bottom between the logs

In fact by 1854 water powered 34 corn and meal mills in East Lothian¹¹. The vassals held the land by feudal tenure and as such had to bring their corn to the mill of the landowner in an act called 'thirling'. Here the grain would be ground and measured for taxation purposes with a cut going to the landowner and some to the miller. Practically every landowner had a mill and I suggest that perhaps the purpose of the mill was changed to a saw mill when the act of thirling was abolished in 1799.

Into the 20^th Century

The finely detailed maps of 1892 (illustration 13) and 1907 (illustration 14) show the mill pond as no longer being fed from the Peffer and the only label on the buildings of what is now called Luffness Mill Cottages is 'Saw Mill'.

A saw mill, with a large circular saw was in existence up until the end of the 20^th century. This was in one of the single story buildings adjoining the cottages and not in a separate building as is depicted on the map. The saw was powered by diesel which would have been more economic to run then the up keep of the water mill complex. Perhaps it was partly for this reason that the water driven mill was demolished.

Illustration 17: OS 25 inch survey 1892 Haddingtonshire sheet 4 detail of Luffness mill race no longer shown at the Peffer.

Illustration 18: OS 25 inch survey 1907 Haddingtonshire sheet 4 Detail Luffness Saw Mill

We can see from an aerial photograph of 1945 (illustration 15) that the mill pond looks like it is overgrown but there is not enough resolution to make out distinct buildings. However, by 1965 the mill pond is distinctly overgrown and the mill demolished (illustration 16).

Illustration 19: Air Photo Mosaics of Scotland, 1944-1950

Illustration 20: 1965 1:2500 Ordnance Survey map

The area of the mill pond that was nearest the cottages was used as a dump for waste from Luffness estate during the latter half of the twentieth century. The water that flowed into the hollow that was the pond still had to drain out over the road and into the Peffer through what was left of the tail race. This was eventually piped under the gardens of the cottages. However when the tide was high the brackish water would flow up the pipe and flood the cottage front garden.

LUFFNESS MILL, EVENING

Patrick William Adam RSA (1854-1929)

Adam was born in Edinburgh. He settled in North Berwick in 1908 and spent the rest of his life there recording the interiors of local society households. Adam died at North Berwick on 27th December 1929, aged 75.

1All of the maps come from the National Library of Scotland unless otherwise stated.

2 http://maps.nls.uk/pont/history/history-over.html

3 http://maps.nls.uk/pont/bio/elusive

4http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/290622/details/tranent+elvingston/

5 Geography, Science and National Identity: Scotland Since 1520 By Charles W. J. Withers. Page 91

6http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/55029/details/luffness+house/

7 http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mendips/aggregates/history/limeburning.html

8Fleet, C. and Withers, C.,Ordnance Survey Maps - Six-inch 1st edition, Scotland, 1843-1882: A Scottish paper landscape. National Library of Scotland.(http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch/os_info1.html).

9 http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/vulcan/56_large.shtml

10 http://data.historic-scotland.gov.uk/pls/htmldb/f?p=2200:15:0::::BUILDING:6559

11 http://www.eastlothianmuseums.org/exhibitions/tranent/houses/Ai280.htm

The History of Luffness: Chapter 1

The Geology of Luffness and the Surrounding Area

Let us consider a simplistic model of the landscape. In this model there are three layers one on top of the other. People have used the lower two levels for many reasons, but it is the upper most layer that man has had the greatest influence on. This surface layer contains a visible record of man's occupation. Here we may find traces of passed civilisation, from the ghost of an ancient village revealing itself as a crop mark, to the solid concrete of a disused airfield. Here on the surface we live among our built environment, streets, field systems, golf courses, woods and all the nameless bits between them all. However, it is never quite this simple because what was on the surface one thousand years ago may now be buried in the next layer down.

The next layer down is what geologists may call the 'superficial deposits' or 'overburden'. This layer contains the soil on which life at the upper surface depends. Most soilⁱ consists of a mixture of disintegrated rock and some organic remains. The mineral content of the soil usually comes from the process of weathering and erosion in which the elements wear down the exposed bedrock.

The bed rock is the third and lowest layer in our model. This strata formed first, and often determines the nature of the overlying two layers. 

The bedrock of the Luffness area

Now let us look at how and when the earliest rocks in the Luffness area were formed. We need to go back to a time before man, back to a time even before the dinosaurs, in fact we have to go back to 350 million years ago to the Carboniferous period. At this time the land that would become Scotland was situated over the equatorⁱⁱ. The area was dominated by tropical forests; whose buried remains would go onto form the Scottish coal fields. The land that would form East Lothian was a flat coastal plain, clothed by forests, dotted with lagoons and crossed by meandering rivers flowing into deltas at the edge of a sea to the north eastⁱⁱⁱ.

This landscape was punctuated by volcanic activity. Magma was forced up through the crust to erupt onto the surface. Once on the surface the magma formed lava flows and gradually formed a cone around the volcanic crater. This was the time when the volcanoes that would produce The Bass Rock and North Berwick Law were active.

If we look at a map of the underlying bedrock (illustration 1)^iv we can see that about one third of the area is made up of a volcanic rock called Trachyte^v, which is thought to have been formed by the crystallization and abstraction of iron, magnesium, and calcium minerals from a parent basaltic lava. Basalt^vi is the Earth's most abundant bedrock. It was formed when the lava cools quickly on the surface to form a rock of a fine grained texture. If the molten magma was trapped within the Earth's crust it cooled slowly to form a coarse grained rock of of variable composition called Gabbro^vii.

One feature formed by magma that never made it to the surface is a sill. A sill forms when the magma is forced sideways through the layers of strata, forcing them apart and then solidifying. An example of a sill can be seen (illustration 2) at Gullane Point^viii.

Illustration 2: British Geological Survey. © NERC. All rights reserved. Image digitised with Grant-in-Aid from SCRAN (Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network)

The British Geological Survey describes it thus:

'The dolerite sill, technically a teschenite, is intruded into the Carboniferous Calciferous Sandstone Measures. As this igneous rock is much harder than the overlying and underlying sedimentary rocks it has withstood erosion better and so now forms a headland.''^ix.

The non volcanic rocks of the area are principally the sedimentary rocks; sandstone, mudstone and siltstone. These rocks differ in the size of grains they are formed from. Limestone is another sedimentary rock that forms Aberlady Point. Limestone was formed from the remains of coral reefs and marine sediments produced by the tropical seas of the Carboniferous period^x.

Now that we have looked at the underlying bedrock we will move up the strata to the next layer; the superficial deposits (illustration 3)^xi. To understand how they formed we need to realise that during much of the past two million years, East Lothian was buried under an ice sheet many hundreds of metres thick^xii. As the enormous weight of this ice bore down on the crust it caused the underlying more viscose mantle material to flow outwards away from the force, which in turn allowed the crust to sink. The ice sheet was not static but flowed west to east across the county. As it did it picked up boulders and fine rock dust which slowly eroded the underlying features. This ice flow carved valleys in an east west orientation and revealed rock formations from the lower layers. The glaciers scoured the volcanoes grinding their cones down to the more resistant rock. It is this resistant rock that forms the remaining plugs that we see today. As well as being an eroding process the ice sheet deposited large amounts of material to form a new uncolonised landscape. These deposits of silt sand and clay have developed over millennia into some of the richest farmland in Britain.

The ice melted for the last time in East Lothian about 14 000 to 16 000^xiii years ago and the sea level rose. With the sea came beaches, but the sea volume dropped and the land was elevated due to post glacial rebound. This is the return flow of the mantle material once the deforming weight of the ice has been removed. Very slowly the crust rises over thousands of years until it reaches an equilibrium level. This level is has not been reached yet but the rate may be less than quoted for Dunbar at a rate of 55mm a year^xiv, which sounds rather extraordinary. Whatever the rate, this still left the beaches stranded from the sea that formed them. This gives us the feature known as a raised beach. A raised beach can be seen on the flank of Gala Law at about eight metres above the present sea level, in what now forms part of Luffness Links.

The predominant overlying geology of this area are the wind blown sands. Along the coast the sands and silts of the beaches are light enough to be readily carried along in the wind, particularly where exposed and dry in the intertidal zone. Onshore movement of sand has produced sand dunes, which became stabilized by plants. Characteristic vegetation communities developed on the sand dunes and dune slacks but, as the shoreline has continued to move towards the sea, the older inland plant communities have developed from sand dependent and salt-tolerant communities into more uniform grassland communities^xv. The raised beach terraces are home to the naturally occurring fine grass species such as Festuca rubra and it is these grasses which make this coast so suitable for the establishment of many fine golf courses.

Having said that, it would be many years before any golf courses were formed. The land as we leave it after the ice melted was uninhabited and would pass through many years before the first people colonised it. It is the evidence of these first people that we examine in the next chapter.

References

iAberlady Bay Local Nature Reserve, Descriptive Management Plan, East Lothian District Council, 1977.

The full details of the soil survey are included in the plan in Section 6, on page 15 and in drawing 4. I have included these in Appendix A.

iiEast Lothian and the Borders:A Landscape Fashioned by Geology. 1997. Scottish Natural Heritage: page 17.

iiiEast Lothian and the Borders:A Landscape Fashioned by Geology. 1997. Scottish Natural Heritage: page 4.

ivMap product: British Geological Survey 1:50000. Map printed at 1:25000. Digimap.edina.ac.uk/geologyroam/mapper

v http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/601494/trachyte

vi http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/54604/basalt

vii http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/223075/gabbro

viiiEast Lothian and the Borders:A Landscape Fashioned by Geology. 1997. Scottish Natural Heritage: page 7.

ixDigimap.edina.ac.uk/geologyroam/mapper

xEast Lothian and the Borders:A Landscape Fashioned by Geology. 1997. Scottish Natural Heritage: page 17.

xiMap product: British Geological Survey 1:50000. Map printed at 1:25000. Digimap.edina.ac.uk/geologyroam/mapper

xiiEast Lothian and the Borders:A Landscape Fashioned by Geology. 1997. Scottish Natural Heritage: page 18.

xiii Lambeck K, 1995: Late Devensian and Holocene shorelines of the British Isles and North Sea from models of glacio-hydro-isostatic rebound,Journal of the Geological Society-London, Vol. 152, 1995, pp. 437–448

xivMoffat A., 2005, Before Scotland: The story of Scotland Before History, ISBN. 0500005133X, Page. 30.

xvRoger P. Kirby (1997): The Aberlady Bay coastal landforms and vegetation communities, Scottish

Geographical Magazine, 113:2, 121-126