Gladsmuir

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This article is about the village in Scotland. For Gladsmuir, the house on Hadley Common, London, see Lemmons.
Gladsmuir Parish Kirk.

Gladsmuir is a village and parish in East Lothian, Scotland, situated on the A199 and near Tranent and Prestonpans.

Description

The name Gladsmuir stems from the Scots word gled, meaning a bird of prey, (usually a buzzard), combined with muir; the Scots form of moor, thus Buzzard's Moor might loosely translate Gladsmuir into English.

Gladsmuir's principal "claim to fame" relates to its role as the site of the Battle of Prestonpans (1745). Some sources - particularly maps - occasionally refer to the confrontation as the Battle of Gladsmuir. The Jacobite poet William Hamilton (1704-1754) wrote a poem entitled Gladsmuir in celebration of the battle.

The philanthropist George Heriot, jeweller to James VI, King of Scots and founder of Heriot's Hospital, (later George Heriot's School), in Edinburgh, was born in Gladsmuir.

Gladsmuir Parish Kirk is a Romanesque cruciform church dating from 1839 and designed by William Burn. A replacement was built after a fire in 1886 by John Farquarson of Haddington with later improvements made in 1929. The older ruined kirk can still be seen and explored behind the new kirk. The graveyard contains several CWGC graves from both world wars.

References

Photo gallery

  • Gladsmuir Kirk

  • New Kirk gargoyle

  • Tombstone detail

  • The Old School House

  • Old Kirk

  • Old Kirk

  • Ruined belltower

  • The Auld Kirk

  • Church with snow January 2010

Coordinates: 55°56′N 2°52′W / 55.933°N 2.867°W / 55.933; -2.867

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