horse and rider map: O.S. 1:25,000

Well, a week ago I couldn't get a connection between my digital camera and the computer. I checked the USB lead at both ends, but it didn't connect with the computer. Tonight nothing different, but the usual window appeared with Picasa as an option for downloading with!? I put in the main pentagonal lines which cover this map, and the blue line from Allermuir Hill to Camp Ridge, which includes both Mavisbank earthmound and Newtongrange Church. I'll cover the unfolding geometry on this line with Mavisbank as centre later!

This is the original map which I had pasted onto a board with the surrounding maps, giving me the main area of my work. A closer look will show my working lines, with many highlighted spots. It was whilst gazing at this one dispirited night, back in 1999 and asking despairingly what it was all about that it appeared to my minds eye, it was like in bas relief, the image came out of the flat surface and was so obvious, how come I had never seen it previously. Well, my best guess is, the act of sitting back gave me a detached view, and at a suitable scale, and the frame of mind was probably a contributing factor. Stunned and shocked as I was, on inspection it was astonishing, but not entirely surprising that the features were actual landscape structures, made up of estate boundary walls, with specific points of the feature marked by farms, churches, castles and even housing developments, which in effect follow the lines of the fields upon which they are situated. For example, the horses ears, are delineated by the estate of Woodburn, with the space between them taken up by a school, the playing field/playground left white, with buildings/houses in black.

I eventually coloured the feature in, mostly green for outline and any woodland incorporated. I also sketchily filled in with yellow highlighter which I think can be seen. The whole looks a bit unnaturally coloured, due to me having put a coat of clear varnish onto it when I first mounted it, to keep it clean. In retrospect that was a mistake, but not major.





Labels:

Al - Allermuir Hill
Au - Auchendinny
Car - Carberry; Tower and Hill(Queen Mary's Mount, and ancient fort)
CR - Camp Ridge(earthworks)
DHC - Dalkeith House, site of old Castle. The boundary wall forms the helmeted rider's head. Originally Douglas land, then the Buccleughs. One of whom as Earl of Dalkeith was first Grandmaster of Grand Lodge back in the 18th century.
Ea - Easthouses, village where I spent my childhood
G - Galachlaw, centre of pentagonal system.
Gl - Glencorse Old Kirk
L(SH) - The Sun Hotel, at Lothianburn. At horses chin, part of the Newbattle Boundary. The Sun was a Kerr Family symbol.
LD(SF) - Langhill Farm, Dryden Tower, and Shinbanes Field, supposedly where bones are unearthed from the Battle of Roslin. The Researh Centre responsible for Dolly The Sheep is also here. The rider's knee, along with Nivensknowe.
LK - Lasswade Kirk.
KC - Kirkton Cottage, at corner of small inner pentagon.
KG - Kings Gate, near Sherrifhall, part of Dalkeith estate wall, rider's neck.
MC - Melville Castle.
ME - Mavisbank earthmound, at back of Mavisbank House, built by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik.
MoW - The Meeting of the Waters, the riders brow, where the two Esk rivers meet. The area inside the confluence is called Lady's Seat.
NA - Newbattle Abbey, the eye of the Horse. Cistercian Abbey originally, at Reformation became the personal property of the last Abbot, a Kerr, who became Earl of Lothian. Newtongrange village including the Church was part of Lothian Estates. The Sauniere Society hold their Scottish Symposia there, and is now an Adult Residential College, where I spent an academic year back in 1995/6.
NC - Newtongrange Church.
NK - Nivensknowe, where the rider's knee bends.
P - Penicuik, Sir John Clerk's estate is just to the south, but off this map section.
RC - Rosslyn Chapel, at rider's calf, and among other things a corner of the small inner pentagon.
Sh - Shewington, farm on a ridge, a corner of original pentagon.
ST - Shank Tongue. In Shank estate, where John Reid, the gardener who wrote the first book for Scottish Gardener's in 1683, who was insistent that in Scotland, land is measured by the Ell, 37 inches. His employer at Shank was Sir George Mackenzie(known as 'the bluidy', due to his treatment of the Covenanter's).
StMF - St Margaret's Farm, where the rider's elbow bends.
Td - Todhills Farm near Danderhall, a corner of small inner pentagon.
W - Woodburn, the horses ears/mane.