Inveresk
St Michael's Parish Church, Inveresk
Inveresk is located in East Lothian
Inveresk
Inveresk
Inveresk is located in Scotland
Inveresk
Inveresk
Location within Scotland
OS grid referenceNT346719
Council area
Lieutenancy area
CountryScotland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townMUSSELBURGH
Postcode districtEH21
Dialling code0131
PoliceScotland
FireScottish
AmbulanceScottish
UK Parliament
Scottish Parliament
Inveresk Lodge Garden
The western section of Inveresk Village is typified by high stone walls and mansion-houses screened by trees
Manor House, a typical mansion in Inveresk village
Typical 18th-century houses at the east end of Inveresk village

Inveresk (Gaelic: Inbhir Easg) is a village in East Lothian, Scotland situated 5⁄8 mi (1 km) to the south of Musselburgh.[1] It has been designated a conservation area since 1969. It is situated on slightly elevated ground on the north bank of a loop of the River Esk. This ridge of ground, 20 to 25 metres above sea level, was used by the Romans as the location for Inveresk Roman Fort in the 2nd century AD.[2]

The prefix "Inver" (Gaelic inbhir) means a river mouth and refers to the point where the River Esk meets the Firth of Forth.[3]

The village was formerly in the Midlothian parish of Inveresk and developed separately from the burgh of Musselburgh.

History

A Roman cavalry fort sat on the hilltop around 200AD and numerous Roman artefacts and buildings have been found in the village over the years. In 2004, archaeological excavations by Headland Archaeology found Roman artefacts on Inveresk Brae.[4] The lands were gifted to Dunfermline Abbey in the 12th century.[5]

Inveresk centres on a street of fine 17th- and 18th-century houses. Its location being thought to be agreeable and healthy earned for the village the name of the Montpellier of Scotland.[6]

Inveresk Lodge (1683) is now privately leased, but the adjacent Inveresk Lodge Garden belongs to the National Trust for Scotland, and its west facing gardens overlooking the river Esk are open to the public. This was formerly the mansion of James Wedderburn who had made his fortune as a slave-owning sugar plantation owner in Jamaica. When his son by one of his slaves, Robert Wedderburn, travelled to Inveresk to claim his kinship, while his father did not deny him to be his son, he "called me a lazy fellow, and said he would do nothing for me. From his cook I had one draught of small beer, and his footman gave me a cracked sixpence". This experience turned Robert Wedderburn to radicalism.

Halkerstoun dates from around 1690. The Manor House was built in 1748 for Archibald Shiells. Catherine Lodge built in 1709 for Alexander Christie. Eskhill was owned by Thomas Mylne in 1710 and incorporates a finely carved 1760 doorpiece moved from a demolition in George Square, Edinburgh in the 1970s. Oak Lodge dates from c.1720, Eskgrove House from around 1750. Inveresk House is one of the oldest in the group dating from at least 1643, and Inveresk Gates dates from 1773.[7]

The war memorial, south of the church, was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1920.[8]

St. Michael's Church

The church site predates the Reformation and originally belonged to the Abbey of Dunfermline. From 1560 it came under the Presbytery of Edinburgh but in 1591 transferred permanently to the control of the Presbytery of Dalkeith.[9]

The village is dominated by St. Michael's church that stands at its west end on the summit of a hill overlooking Musselburgh. Its graveyard/cemetery stretches westwards for almost 300m and is split into separate walled sections (marking its various stages of extension) which can be broadly bracketed as original (mainly 18th century), a late Victorian extension, an Edwardian/ early 20th century extension to the north, and a modern section to the far west.

The current church is by Robert Nisbet and dates to 1805 and has a stone spire of Wren-influence.[10]

Noteworthy graves

Grave of Major William Norman Ramsay in St Michael's churchyard

The graveyard has a number of notable graves:

Other notable persons linked to Inveresk

  • Mary Levison served as Deaconess in St Michael's Church in Inveresk from 1954,[12] and was the first person to petition the Church of Scotland for the ordination of women to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in 1963.
  • James Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl, buried here.
  • Robert Mylne, architect/master mason, 1633–1710, lived and died here
  • Clarissa Dickson Wright the chef and broadcaster lived here until her death in March 2014.[13]
  • Henry Yule (1820-1899), Scottish Orientalist, born here
  • Mungo Park, famed golfer, died in the poor house here in 1904

References

Citations
  1. ↑ Groome 1882, p. 296.
  2. ↑ Burnet,JEM (1999) A reason for Inveresk. Courtyard Press, Inveresk. ISBN 0-9537450-0-7
  3. ↑ Dixon, Norman. "The Placenames of Midlothian" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 August 2011. Retrieved 4 July 2012. "'The mouth of the R. Esk' v. G. inbhir, inbhear: 'the confluence of a stream with the sea.'"
  4. ↑ "Vol 30 (2009): Archaeological monitoring in the streets of Musselburgh: recent discoveries | Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports". journals.socantscot.org. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  5. ↑ Buildings of Scotland: Lothian by Colin McWilliam
  6. ↑ Carlyle 1791.
  7. ↑ Buildings of Scotland: Lothian by Colin McWilliam
  8. ↑ Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Robert Lorimer
  9. ↑ Scott 1915.
  10. ↑ McWilliam, Colin (1978). Buildings of Scotland Lothian except Edinburgh. Penguin Books.
  11. ↑ "Waterloo Men".
  12. ↑ "Obituary: Rev. Mary Levison, minister of the Church of Scotland". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
  13. ↑ Dickson Wright, Clarissa (2012). Clarissa's England: A gamely gallop through the English counties. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9781444729139.
Sources
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