The road by the Gannochy Bridge divides the properties of The Burn and Arnhall, both of which, under the designation of the latter, formed a barony belonging the noble house of Southesk down to a comparatively recent date, and some mementoes of the occupancy of that family are yet visible on a sculptured stone at the Chapelton of Arnhall, as well as in some parts of the old mansion house.* It was from the grandfather of the present baronet of Southesk that Lord Adam Gordon and Mr. Brodie purchased The Burn and Arnhall; and, on the death of his Lordship in 1801 Mr. Brodie added The Burn lands to Arnhall, and continued the improvement so ably begun by his brave and illustrious predecessor. Since then, both estates have been under one proprietor, and Mr. Brodie was succeeded by his only child, the Duchess of Gordon, who disposed of her patrimony in 1814 to Mr. Shand, a West India merchant, from whose trustees the estates were purchased by Major M'Inroy.

The vicinity of the Gannochy Bridge (on the Edzell side of which a fine shooting lodge is now being erected), has long been an object of admiration to the lovers of sublime and romantic scenery, the picturesque vista from which, both up and down the river, particularly after rains, can scarcely be overrated; and here the language of Thomson is peculiarly applicable—

"Nor can the tortured wave here find repose :
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scattered fragments, now
Aslant the hollowed channel rapid darts;
And falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
With wild infracted course, and lessen'd roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last,
Along the mazes of the quiet vale."

The Bridge was originally built of only half its present width, in the year 1732, and at the sole expense of James Black, then

*These relics of the Southesk family consist of a stone, built into the wall of a cottage at Chapelton, bearing an erroneons sculpture of the family arms, for the spread eagle, instead of being single is double-headed. These initials and dates, which refer to the second and fifth Earls, are also upon it :-" ANNO. 1668. E. I:E.I.S.1704;" and, within the house of Arnhall, but now plastered over, are the dates 1669 and 1709. In 1691, this Barony consisted of the fo!lowing farms:-Mayns, Milne Eye of Disclune, and Milne Lands, Inch, Chapeltoune and Hill of Dillidyes, Bogge-side, Moss-end, Dean-Strath, Steill-Strath, Tillytogles, Burne, Satyre, and Wood-myres. The number of tenants on these were nearly seventy; and the gross rental amounted to 185 bolls, 2 firlots, 2 pecks, and 3 lippies, bear; 296 bolls, 3 pecks, meal; £906 0s. 8d. Scots; 74 capons, 65 hens, and 440 pultry.-Southesk Rental Book, from 1691 to 1710 inclusive, in possession of Sir James Carnegie of Southesk, Bart.

tenant of the adjoining farm of Wood of Edzell; and in 1795, it was widened by the late Lords Adam Gordon and Panmure. The traditional origin of this remarkable Bridge, as preserved by Black's relatives, is nearly as romantic as the site of the Bridge itself. This worthy man, who had no family, was understood to be wealthy, and, as his neighbours had often experienced the inconvenience of round-about roads, and the dangerous fords of the North Esk, and were aware at the sametime of his weak side and heavy purse, they adopted the wily scheme of monkish invention, which induced the farmer to confer this great and lasting boon upon the district. During the winter of 1731, when several lives were lost in the river, the spirit of one of those unfortunate individuals is said to have called upon him three successive nights, and implored him to erect the Bridge, and save farther loss of life! Unable to find peace of mind, or to withstand the injunction of his nocturnal visitor, his humanity gave way, and he set to his pious work, and had the Bridge erected at the very spot which the spirit pointed out!

CHAPTER III.

Lethnot and Navar.

"Lone Navar's church-deserted tombs."

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-trees shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

SECTION I.

As shewn in the previous Chapter, the districts of Lethnot and Glenesk were served of old by one clergyman, who preached twice at the former place for every once that he did so at the latter; but in 1723, when Glenesk, or Lochlee, was erected into a separate charge, the parish of Navar was joined to Lethnot in its stead. The road by which the minister went to Glenesk by the Clash of Wirran, still bears the name of the Priest's Road, and is the nearest, though certainly the most lonely and steep way, from Brechin to Lochlee.

Navar was only divided from Lethnot by the West Water, and the churches lay within a mile of each other. Both were attached to the bishoprick of Brechin, and, for some time after the Reformation, were under the superintendence of one minister, for in the year 1567 James Foullartoun had a stipend from both of some twenty-six pounds Scots, while each had its own reader, with salaries of twenty pounds a-piece.*

The church of Lethnot was erected into a prebend of the cathedral of Brechin in 1384, by Sir David Lindsay of Glenesk, afterwards Earl of Crawford, and large mortifications were made out of some of the lands such as from Drumcairn and

The etymology of LETHNOT seems doubtful, and "Lethnoth" is the spelling in the ancient Taxatio; but some suppose that Levenach was the original name. The Brit. Neth-var (and "Netheuer" is the oldest spelling of NAVAR), means "whirling streams," and is not inapplicable to the motion of the burns which run through the district.

Finnoch-both to the parent cathedral and to the monastery of the Greyfriars in Dundee, not only by the first Earl and the Countess Marjory, but also by "a rycht noble and mychtie prince David, Duk of Montrose, and Erle of Craufurde," who endowed a religious service from these lands, for the safety of his own soul and those of his progenitors and successors, as also for that of his benefactor, the unfortunate James III., for all of whom a daily mass was to be said, and requiem sung, at the altar of Our Lady by the whole convent, which was to be "opinly callit the Duk's mess of Montross." Drumcairn lies adjacent to the kirk of Lethnot, and its rental, with that of Clochie and Mill of Lethnot, was enjoyed by Lord Menmuir, as lay parson of the parish, during a part of the subsequent century.

The first Prebendary of Lethnot was John de Inverpeffer. He was succeeded by John de Angus, and persons bearing the names of Adam de Inrepeffre, and Eue de Anegos, both of the shire of Forfar, swore fealty to Edward in 1296, and to these families both Prebendaries may have been related. William Wrycht succeeded Angus in the kirk of Lethnot, on whose decease in the year 1410, the second Earl of Crawford presented his beloved cousin, Andrew Ogilvy, clerk of the diocese of Dunkeld, and son of Sir Alexander de Ogilvy, Sheriff of Forfar. In 1435, the then Prebendary David Ogilvy (who was of the same family as Andrew) was charged with the nonpayment of an annual from Lethnot to the cathedral of Brechin, and, from the fact that the debt was found to have been partly paid to Bishop Patrick-in so far as in his time a large white horse was given, together with the use of a cart and horse to lead stones to the building of the campanile or belfry of the church of Brechin in 1354-84-when Sir Henry de Lichton was the renter of the church (i. e. of the teinds), pretty substantial proof is afforded regarding the time of the erection of the steeple or spire of that cathedral.

It is unknown to what particular Saint the church of Navar was dedicated, but the Virgin was patron of Lethnot, and during

* Drum-cairn, i. e. "the ridge of hillocks."-Fion-ach, i. e. "a sloping field."

↑ Crawford Case, p. 45; and Original Dukedom of Montrose Case, p. 15.

Ragman Rolls, p. 126.

From Reg. de Aberbrothoc, p. 165, it appears that Walkelyn, the king's brewer, was the first of the Inverpeffer family. He had a grant of the lands of Inverpeffer, near Arbroath, from William the Lion, about A.D. 1200, and assumed his surname from thence.

L

the incumbency of the late Mr. Symers, several votive offerings, consisting of pieces of silver money, were found in the fountain. near the church, which still bears the name of St. Mary's Well; and the once revered baptismal font, which is a plain circular stone basin, has long served the humble purpose of a water trough at the manse.

Here, as in Glenesk, Episcopacy was held in great esteem, and the chapel, which stood at the Clochie, was also burned to the ground in 1746, and it is traditionally preserved that the soldiers forced the farmer, who was a keen Jacobite, to carry burning peats from his own hearth and straw from his own barn, and with drawn swords over and around him, made him set fire to his own beloved Zion. This, however, had not the effect desired; for though the nest was destroyed, the rooks still lingered around their native haunts, and profited as much by the exhortation of their laborious pastor in the fields, as they had done before under the roof; and, at a subsequent period (as before noticed), the remains of Mr. Rose were laid within the walls of this church, distant only a short way from one of the luckless scenes of his labours. It was perhaps, from the reverence in which Episcopacy was held here that the prayer of the Navarians, to be exempted from compliance with the terms of the Disarming Act of 1748, was refused; for although they insisted that they were out guarding the district against the rebels, they were all denuded of their swords and guns. The same cause may have retarded the formation of a kirk session, it not being until the late period of 1749 (a lapse of nearly thirty years from the disjunction of Lethnot and Lochlee, and the union of the former with Navar), that a parochial court was formed.

The foundation of the present church of Lethnot was laid on the 5th of July 1827, "in due masonic order" (as related by a contemporary newspaper), "in presence of a number of the brethren of the mystic tie and surrounding tenantry." Some of the early repairs of former edifices, if not the time of their erection, are preserved by two stones which form the base of the belfry, and bear respectively, "-1672 N," and "17. J.R. 42." The first date refers to the incumbency of a Mr. Norie, of whom, beyond the name, little is known in the district; but the memory of Mr. John Row, to whom the latter belongs, is still gratefully