The Abbey Bridge where the cache is concealed takes a minor road
over the Tyne. You could easily drive pretty much up to the box. So
in addition to finding the physical cache I want you to solve the
mystery of that bisected church and email me with the single
compound word that explains its purpose. The answer is contained in
an information board about Amisfield Park which is …… well,
somewhere along the route described below.
The best starting point is to come over the Victoria Bridge in
Haddington. There is roadside parking on Whittinghame Drive just
beyond Bermaline Mills. Follow a tarmac path across the playing
fields which follows the boundary of the cemetery to lead you to a
footbridge across the Tyne. Turn right and follow the path along
the north bank of the river. As you look across the fields to the
north you can see the line of the new A1 “Expressway” and the old
road (now the A199) just beyond it. And there is that odd “half
church” – all the frontage but none of the depth, for all the world
like something from a film set.
The path takes you to the point where the mediaeval Abbey Bridge
crosses the Tyne. Follow the road over the bridge and then take the
path through the wall on the right into Amisfield Park. The old
estate grounds are now Haddington Golf Course. The path running
through the Course is a public right of way. Once you reach the
Clubhouse the path becomes a tarmac drive which will bring you back
to Whittinghame Drive close to the ruins of St Martin’s Church,
possibly the oldest church in Scotland, which are worth a visit and
which have
a cache of their own before you return to your car and or
refreshment in Haddington.
The Abbey Bridge
The bridge is now the only physical reminder of the presence
here of a nunnery founded in the 13th century and which stood here
for 400 years. It was used in 1548 as the meeting place for the
Scots Parliament which agreed to the marriage of Mary Queen of
Scots to the Dauphin. In Knox’s thunderous phrases: "Thus was
she sold to go to France, to the end that she should drink of that
liquor that should remain with her all her lifetime for a plague to
the realm and for her final destruction."
Amisfield Park
Known in the 1680s as Newmilns, the park was then the property
of Sir James Stansfield, who was a Colonel in Cromwells Army. He
came north after the Battle of Dunbar and founded a wollen mill
here. Stansfield may have been an upright man but his son Philip
was a sad disappointment to him. “Although his father had given
him a liberal education, he had taken ill courses, and been
detained prisoner in the Marshalsea, in Southwark, and in the
public prisons of Antwerp, Orleans, and other places, from whence
his said father had released him; and that notwithstanding, he fell
to his debauched and villainous courses again.”
Sir James resolved to disinherit Philip and settle his estate on
his younger son. Philip’s response was to cut his father’s throat
and deposit the body in the Tyne in an attempt to make it appear
that he had drowned himself. Not a very cunning plan you might
think; and made all the more transparent by the evidence adduced at
his trial that “within an hour after his father was brought from
the water he got the buckles off his shoes and put them on his
own.” Sir James’ body was examined by a surgeon at Morham Kirk,
and the surgeon’s evidence at the trial contained the grisly story
of the wounds reopening and bleeding afresh when Philip handled the
corpse.
The account of Philip’s trial concludes:
“ The assize finding him guilty, the Lords of Justiciary
ordered him to be hanged on the 15th of February, at the Cross of
Edinburgh, and his tongue to be cut out for cursing his father, and
his right hand to be cut off for the parricide, and his head to be
put upon the East Port of Haddington, as nearest to the place of
murder, and his body to be hung up in chains betwixt Leith and
Edinburgh, and his lands and goods to be confiscated for the
treason.”
“All this was rigorously put into execution. “Some thought,"
says Lord Fontainhall, a contemporary judge, "if not a miraculous,
yet an extraordinary return of the imprecations was the accident of
the slipping of the knots on the cross, whereby his feet and knees
were on the scaffold, which necessitated them to strangle him,
bearing therein a near resemblance to his father's death; and a new
application having been made that they might be allowed to bury
him, Duke Hamilton was for it, but the Chancellor would not
consent, because he had mocked his religion. So his body was hung
up, and some days after being stolen down, it was found lying in a
ditch among some water, as his father's was; and by order was hung
up again, and then a second time was taken down."
Amisfield passed into the hands of “the infamous gambler and
rake” Colonel Francis Charteris, whose daughter married James, 5th
Earl of Wemyss (1699-1756). He named the estate Amisfield after his
lands in Dumfriesshire. Amisfield House, regarded as the finest
example of Orthodox Palladianism in Scotland, was built c.1755 by
Isaac Ware for Francis Charteris of Wemyss, who inherited the
estate, but not the title, from his father. It was extended in
1785, but was demolished in 1928. Some of the sandstone from this
house was reused to build a school at Prestonpans, Longniddry Golf
Clubhouse and the Vert Memorial Hospital at Haddington (which has
since been converted into flats, one of which houses a certain
“Jack Aubrey”.) A stable block and a folly in the form of a Grecian
Temple remain. The folly has been recently restored. The land was
sold to Haddington Town Council in 1960 for £49,000. A snip!