Rambling Through History
The snow sparkled and threw each hill in the Pentlands into sharp relief against a blue sky. The group of Monklands Ramblers who had earlier debussed at Dunsyre laughed and joked as they walked through the snow. The air was clean and it was good just to be there. Particular merriment was caused when they struggled down a slope watching for who would be next to go into a drift.
Only a few were aware that on another frosty day some 300 years ago the then snow covered hills had witnessed a very different scene.
On the evening of November 29th 1666, a badly wounded man struggled his way near Black Law the now ruined, but still visible cottage of Blackhill.
We don’t know his name, but he was from Ayrshire and had received his injuries earlier that day at the battle of Rullion Green where Tam Dalziel of the Bins had inflicted a heavy defeat on the small Covenanting army. The defeated men had scattered and were being ruthlessly pursued by the Royalist army who showed little mercy.
Little wonder then, that when our Covenanter arrived at Blackhill cottage, the occupier, a shepherd called Adam Sanderson, refused him shelter, (since he would surely also be hanged if caught) and sent him on his way.
The wounded man merely asked that in the morning when he would surely be found dead, that he should be buried facing his own Ayrshire Hills. His lifeless body was found in the morning near a row of oak saplings.
Sanderson carried the man up the hillside and buried him facing his native county.
Doubt arose in the 18th century about the truth of the tradition and several noted dignitaries from Edinburgh opened the grave when it was recorded that the body was there, well preserved, wrapped in a red cloak or mantle and sewn in the collar were two Dutch silver coins.
Later, vast crowds from surrounding parishes witnessed a proper burial service. An inscription on a stone read…
"ERECTED"
"In memory of a Covenanter
who fought and was wounded
at the battle of Rullion Green
29th November 1666
and died at an oaken bush
near this spot, and was buried by
Adam Sanderson, Blackhill"
That stone has long since gone but a similar one stands today over the simple grave on the bare hillside.
Monklands Ramblers recently returned to these well loved hills in the Carlops/Nine Mile Burn area. Well fed, well dressed and in relatively good health it was hard to think of this as a place of terror, pain, bloodshed and suffering.
This is just one story. How many other stories are there, just waiting for someone to tell them? Rambling takes us through not only distance, but time, history and in the steps of people who once walked where we now walk.
By Jim Summers