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Cramond Village (; gd, Cathair Amain) is a village and suburb in the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the mouth of the River Almond where it enters the
Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate of ''fjord'', a Norse word meani ...
. The Cramond area has evidence of
Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
, Bronze Age and Roman activity. In modern times, it was the birthplace of the Scottish economist
John Law John Law may refer to: Arts and entertainment *John Law (artist) (born 1958), American artist *John Law (comics), comic-book character created by Will Eisner *John Law (film director), Hong Kong film director * John Law (musician) (born 1961), B ...
(1671–1729). Cramond was incorporated into the City of Edinburgh by the Edinburgh Boundaries Extension and Tramways Act 1920.


Etymology

It was once believed that Cramond Roman Fort was known to the Romans as ''Alaterva''. A stone altar was dug up in the grounds of Cramond House dedicated "To the Alatervan
Mothers ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gesta ...
and the Mothers of the Parade-ground."Site Record for Cramond Edinburgh, Cramond Roman Fort Details
– Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
Early
antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...
s interpreted the inscription as referring to the place where the stone was found, but this idea is no longer accepted among scholars, and "Alatervae" is presumably a native name for the deities the Matres and Matronae, perhaps originating with the Tungrian cohort who erected the altar. In the centuries that followed the end of the Roman occupation, Cramond passed into the hands of the
Votadini The Votadini, also known as the ''Uotadini'', ''Wotādīni'', ''Votādīni'', or ''Otadini'' were a Brittonic people of the Iron Age in Great Britain. Their territory was in what is now south-east Scotland and north-east England, extending fro ...
, who spoke Cumbric, a
Brythonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...
Celtic language, and gave the settlement its name. Cramond is derived from the compound ''Caer Amon'', meaning 'fort on the river', referring to the Roman fort that lay on the River Almond.


History


Early history


Pre-Roman

Archaeological excavations at Cramond have uncovered evidence of habitation dating to around
8500 BC The 9th millennium BC spanned the years 9000 BC to 8001 BC (11 to 10 thousand years ago). In chronological terms, it is the first full millennium of the current Holocene epoch that is generally reckoned to have begun by 9700 BC (11.7 thousand ...
, making it, for a time, the earliest known site of human settlement in Scotland. The inhabitants of the Mesolithic camp-site were nomadic hunter-gatherers who moved around their territories according to the season of the year.Cramond Heritage Trust (1996), p. 8 Although no bones survived the acid soil, waste pits and stakeholes that would have supported shelters or windbreaks were excavated. Numerous discarded hazelnut shells, the waste product of the inhabitants' staple food, were found in the pits and used to carbon-date the site. It is thought the site was chosen for its location near the junction of the Firth of Forth and the River Almond, where the rich oyster and mussel beds proved a reliable natural resource. Many microlith stone tools manufactured at the site were found, and pre-date finds of similar style in England.


Roman period

Around 142, Roman forces arrived at Cramond by order of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, with the task of establishing a fort at the mouth of the River Almond. This fort would guard the eastern flank of the fortified frontier known as the
Antonine Wall The Antonine Wall, known to the Romans as ''Vallum Antonini'', was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. Built some twe ...
(named after the Emperor, as with
Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...
's Wall) that the Romans had established across Scotland. Nearly five hundred men worked on the site, building a fort that covered nearly six acres, with a harbour for communication. However, the fort was only inhabited for a short time, perhaps fifteen years, before it was abandoned by the troops who were ordered to retreat south to
Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. R ...
. Pottery and coins of later date indicate that the fort and harbour were reinhabited and used as a base for the army and navy of the Emperor Septimius Severus, sometime between 208 and 211. The medieval parish church of Cramond parish (which retains its late medieval western tower in altered form), was built within the Roman fort. Though knowledge of the Roman presence at Cramond was recorded afterwards, the remains of the fort itself were only rediscovered in 1954. Substantial archaeological research was carried out upon its discovery to build up a reasonably accurate picture of the site in Roman times. The fort was rectangular in shape, with walls fifteen feet high on all sides. A gatehouse was set in every wall, allowing access in all four directions. Inside, there were barracks, workshops, granaries, headquarters and the commander's house. Later excavations revealed other constructions outside the boundary of the fort, including a
bath-house Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...
, further industrial workshops and a native settlement. In 1997, the
Cramond Lioness The Cramond Lioness is a Roman-era sculpture recovered in 1997 from the mouth of the River Almond at Cramond in Edinburgh, Scotland. The sculpture, one of the most important Roman finds in Scotland for decades, was discovered by ferryman Robert ...
was uncovered in the harbour mud by a local boatman (who received a substantial monetary reward for finding this major antiquity), and was identified as a sandstone statue of a lioness devouring a hapless male figure, probably one of a pair at the tomb of a military commander. After conservation, the statue was put on display in the
National Museum of Scotland The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...
in Edinburgh. It is one of the most ambitious pieces of Roman sculpture to have survived in Scotland.


Medieval period

After the departure of the Romans, little is known about the state of Cramond for several centuries. The historiography of the period has been summed up by the historian J. Wood, who wrote 'a dark cloud of obscurity again settled over the parish of Cramond, of which I cannot find the smallest memorial in any historian till the year 995.'Wood (1794), p. 12 A tower house,
Cramond Tower Cramond Tower is a fifteenth-century tower house in the village of Cramond to the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. History The area around the Tower has had a human settlement since the time of Ancient Rome, and there are relics from that time ...
, probably built in the early 15th century, and part of a now-demolished larger establishment, was once a manor house of the
Bishops of Dunkeld The Bishop of Dunkeld is the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Dunkeld, one of the largest and more important of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th-century cleric named Cormac. However, the first k ...
, of whose diocese Cramond was a part. It was made structurally sound and converted to a private dwelling in the 1980s.


Modern history

Cramond developed slowly over the centuries, with
Cramond Kirk Cramond Kirk is a church situated in the middle area Cramond parish, in the north west of Edinburgh, Scotland. Built on the site of an old Roman fort, parts of the Cramond Kirk building date back to the fourteenth century and the church tower is ...
being founded in 1656. After a brief period spent as an industrial village in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, by the late 19th century it became a desirable suburb of Edinburgh, which it remains to this day. Cramond was officially made part of Edinburgh on 1 November 1920. On 21 February 2009, Philippa Langley began her successful Looking For Richard Project at the Cramond Inn.


Geography

Cramond is located at in northwest Edinburgh, about from the city centre, at the mouth of the River Almond where it enters the Firth of Forth. Historically, the parish of Cramond extended from the shore of the Firth of Forth in the north to the parish of Corstorphine in the south, and was bounded on the west by the parishes of Dalmeny and Kirkliston and on the east by the parish of St Cuthbert's.Wood (1794), p. 1 It covered an area of fifteen square miles, and encompassed the villages of Granton, Pilton, Muirhouse, Davidson's Mains, Blackhall, Ravelston,
Craigcrook Craigcrook is a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland, best known for Craigcrook Castle. It is fairly affluent, and lies on the north east slopes of Corstorphine Hill. It is near Clerwood, and Blackhall. Davidson's Mains lies to the north, separated f ...
, Turnhouse and Craigiehall.Brown (2000), p. 1 The area has a low, gently undulating topography that drops down from the top of Corstorphine hill to the shore in three gradual stages and is intersected by the River Almond which flows northward into the Forth.Cramond Heritage Trust (1996), p. 4 During the last ice age the area was heavily glaciated, and the main direction of the ice flow was west to east. Consequently, there are rock deposits on the east side of landforms such as the Almond river valley, and until the Cramond promenade was built in the 1930s large glacial boulders were strewn along the shore. The geology of Cramond consists of
calciferous sandstone Calciferous sandstone is a geological term relating to strata at the base of the Carboniferous formation, below the entire sequence of coal measures. This term may be unique to the UK. Typically this part of the geological sequence, as in the T ...
, which mixed with two later sills to give the area its characteristic chocolate-brown soil. The leaflet "Geological history of cramond" provides information about the geology of the cramond area such as that there is a coal seam visible near the beach on the south west side of the river almond estuary.


Landmarks and sculpture

The 8 tonne work ''Fish'' has been permanently installed on the Waterfront at Cramond in 2009 after a successful campaign by the Cramond community, paying homage to the eight months of carving of the pink granite there by sculptor
Ronald Rae Ronald Rae is a Scottish sculptor born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1946. His works are entirely hand-carved in granite. He has over fifty outdoor granite sculptures in public and private collections throughout the UK. His largest work to date is the 20 t ...
in 2002. Cramond Kirk Church Hall also displays the smaller ''Cramond Fish''. In the car park, to the rear of the Kirk Hall, another sculpture (elephant) is taking shape.


Architecture

The older houses along the wharf are typical of traditional south-east Scottish vernacular architecture, constructed in stone with harling white
lime render Lime render is the first coat of lime "plaster or the like" applied to the external surfaces of traditionally-built stone or brick buildings. It allows the building to 'breathe' – as lime is porous, it allows for the collection and evaporation ...
finish, with facing stone window and door surrounds and ''crow-step gables'', roofed with orangey-red clay pantiles imported from the Netherlands. A ruined water mill lies further up the Almond along a quiet walk past a yacht club and sailing boats moored in the river. To the east a sand beach and waterfront esplanade provides a popular walk to Silverknowes and Granton. On the other side of the Almond, (once accessible by a rowing-boat ferry) the Dalmeny Estate has a pleasant walk through Dalmeny Woods along the shore of the Firth of Forth. A rare example of a morthouse is located in the Church of Scotland churchyard. Near the kirk stands the imposing Cramond House. Its central part is late 17th century, with classical front added in 1778 and back in 1820. Queen Victoria visited while residing at Holyrood. It has been claimed as a possible original of
R. L. Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...
’s "House of Shaws" in ''
Kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...
''. It is now owned by Trustees of the Church of Scotland and until 2010 was used as the headquarters of the Scottish Wildlife Trust. The Trust relocated to Leith. The Manse dates originally from the mid-17th century and was rebuilt in the mid-18th century. The north wing was added about 1770 and a south wing in 1857. Reverend Walker, the skating minister in
Raeburn Raeburn is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Agnes Raeburn (1872-1955), Scottish artist * Anna Raeburn (born 1944), British broadcaster and journalist * Boyd Raeburn U.S. jazz bandleader and bass saxophonist * Henry Raeburn (17 ...
's famous portrait, lived here from 1776 to 1784. Offshore,
Cramond Island Cramond Island (Scottish Gaelic: ''Eilean Chathair Amain'') is one of several islands in the Firth of Forth in eastern Scotland, near Edinburgh. It lies off the foreshore at Cramond. It is long and covers .Wilson, Rev. John ''The Gazetteer of ...
has
WW II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
fortifications and is linked to land by a
causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet Tra ...
with a line of concrete pylons on one side, constructed as an anti shipping barrier. At certain low tides, sand extends to the island, tempting visitors to visit the island, though occasionally some are stranded by the incoming tide.


In fiction

Cramond is associated with '' The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'', where Mr. Lowther has his home and Miss Brodie spends much of her time. Cramond is also where the House of Shaws is located in Robert Louis Stevenson's ''
Kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...
''. Cramond is also mentioned in Ian Rankin's ''
Fleshmarket Close ''Fleshmarket Close'' is a 2004 crime novel by Ian Rankin, and is named after a real close in Edinburgh between the High Street and Market Street, crossing Cockburn Street. It is the fifteenth of the Inspector Rebus novels. "Fleshmarket" is the ...
''. Cramond features briefly in a series 2 episode of the '' Paul Temple (TV series)'' called 'Double Vision' filmed in 1970. More recently Cramond featured in '' Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm''.


Notable residents

* Russell Barr, Minister and Former Moderator of The Church of Scotland. * Campbell Maclean, Minister *
David Bruce (minister) David Bruce DD (20 June 1824 – 15 December 1911) was a Scots-born New Zealand Presbyterian minister and journalist who spent his final years in Australia. Life He was born in Cramond, near Edinburgh on 20 June 1824 to David Bruce, a carpenter ...
* John Chesser (architect), buried in Cramond Kirkyard * Sir
William Edmonstone Admiral Sir William Edmonstone, 4th Baronet CB, DL (29 January 1810 – 18 February 1888), also 14th of Duntreath, was a Scottish naval commander, courtier and Conservative politician. Life Born at Hampton, Edmonstone joined the Royal Navy in ...
*
Sir John Inglis, 2nd Baronet Sir John Inglis of Cramond, 2nd Baronet (September 1683 – 3 March 1771) was Postmaster General for Scotland, the son and heir of Sir James Inglis, 1st Baronet of Cramond, Edinburghshire by his spouse Anne, daughter of Sir Patrick Houstoun, 1st ...
* Rev George Muirhead (1764–1847) minister of Cramond 1816 to 1847 *
James Stuart (1775–1849) James Stuart of Dunearn WS (1775 – 3 November 1849) was a Scottish politician. He was the target of several personal attacks by opponents and participated in a duel that fatally wounded Sir Alexander Boswell. Biography James was born in 1775 ...
, politician. * Rev.
Leonard Small Robert Leonard Small, (12 May 1905 – 8 April 1994), known as Leonard Small, was a senior Church of Scotland minister and author. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Moderator of the General Assembly from 1 ...
, Moderator of the General Assembly. *
Robert Walker (clergyman) Robert Walker FRSE (30 April 1755 – 30 June 1808) was a Church of Scotland minister, best known as the subject of the oil painting ''The Skating Minister'' by Henry Raeburn. Life Walker was born in Monkton, Ayrshire, Monkton in Ayrshire, th ...
, model of the Skating Minister, was at Cramond Kirk. *
John Philip Wood John Philp Wood (died 1838) was a Scottish antiquary and biographer. Life His family was from Cramond, near Edinburgh. Though deaf-mute from early childhood, he held for many years the office of auditor of excise in Scotland. Wood died at Edinburg ...
* John Law (economist), Scottish Economist * J. K. Rowling


References


Notes


Book references

* * *


External links


Notes on Roman Cramond

Cramond KirkDark Ages burial site, Cramond
{{Authority control Populated places established in the 9th millennium BC 9th-millennium BC establishments Archaeological sites in Edinburgh Stone Age sites in Scotland Villages in Edinburgh council area Ports and harbours of Scotland Parishes formerly in Midlothian