Masses of snowdrops lining the woodlands and the sound of birds hinted at spring but the forecast sunshine this afternoon didn’t reach us as the cold haar continued to drift across.  It seemed an appropriate gloomy atmosphere for wandering around looking at gravestones again.
One of the stones in Lasswade Old Churchyard is unique in Scotland.  It was put up 250 years ago by John Ross in 1767 in memory of his wife Marion McKenzie. He was an overseer of Melville coal mines and the stone shows two men surveying with one holding a plumb line and the other has the level on his shoulder and between them is an early clinometer for measuring slopes and angles.  There are also tools of their trade like picks, shovels and a wedge. 

(Gravestone 5)