BellesMa

By BellesMa

Gravestone

A busy day today.
Finished painting the kitchen/ living room whilst Wee B was at her friend's house.
After this, we went out for some fresh air. It started off with a bit of Geocaching, which we've not done in ages but there is a new one nearby so we went to find it.
We then headed to the nearby woods as the snowdrops there are lovely in February.
There is also an old graveyard next to the woods, which is where I found today's Blip. I like to visit old graveyards and read the stories of people's lives. Wee B tolerates this on a good day! She does take a little interest in it, but not as much as me. The headstone pictured was very old. It was quite weather worn but I worked out that it was from about 1730. It was the oldest one I could find in this cemetery. Wee B and I spent some time trying to work out more about the person, from the carvings on it, which were tools such as pick axes. We also reckoned it had two separate graves beneath, as one side had the inscription of one man and the other side had a different inscription of someone seemingly unrelated. Very fascinating.
After this, a trip to Ikea for new shelves for the kitchen which I have spent the evening building. An early night is required.

Edit:
On further investigation, the grave is for a 'collier at Langlaw' who died 1740, which is what the pick axe carvings led me to believe. Turns out this colliery is one of the first in Scotland due to the monks at close by Newbattle Abbey establishing mines there as early as the 13th century. He would have been one of only a dozen or so miners at this pit, which was small at that time, and his wife and children (if he had any) would've worked down there with him, hauling the coal to the surface.
I found out more here:

http://www.prestoungrange.org/prestonpans/html/press/dean_tavern/chapter01.html

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