Colonel James Gardiner

This was his house. It is on the foreshore on the Carriden estate. The house cannot be seen most of the year because it is heavily over grown, but in winter it is accessible. His life story is interesting, from a womanising philanderer, finding God and rising through the ranks of the British army.

He met a most grisly end in the Battle of Prestonpans during the 1745 Jacobite uprising, the Dragoons under his command were routed and he tried to fight on unsupported.

Anyway, the point of this ramble - as I was taking the photographs I was approached by a very old little lady who told me that she remembers being taken to visit the family who lived there when she was a child.