R e s t e n n o t
PRIOR Y .
C a s t l e or
G l a m e s .
ing in feveral parts, even to this day, marks of the deferted chan.’
nel: of late years it has been very confiderably reduced by drain-!
ing; to which the vaft quantity of fine marie at the bottom wai
the temptation. This fine manure is found there in ftrata from
three to ten feet thick, and very often is met with beneath the peat
in the moors. The land improved with it yields four crops foe.
celfively ; after which it is laid down with barley and clover. Tliti
county of Angus is fuppofed to be benefited, within the fix laft
years, by this praftice, by an advance of four thoufand a year m
the rents. Much of this is owing to an old feaman, of this coun-j
try, Mr. Strachan, of Balgayloch, who invented the method of
dragging up the marie from the.bottom of the waters, in the famel
manner as the ballaft is for ihips.
About a mile north of Forfar, lay the cell or priory of Rtjlm
not, dependent on the abbey o i jedburgh. This houfe was placed!
in a lake, and acceffible only by a draw-bridge: here, therefore]
the monks o f Jedburgh depofited their papers, and all their valid
able effects*.
Five miles further is the caftle of Glames, a place much celeJ
brated in our hiftory ; firft for the murder of Malcolm Fat fecondl
who fell here by the hands of aifailins, in a paffage ftill ihewn til
ftrangers. It might at the time be part of the pofieffions of thel
family of the famous Macbeth, who tells us, through the moutnj
of Shakefpear,
By S itu l’s death I know I am Thane o f G lam s.
This Sinel being, as Boethius informs us, father to that tyrant!
* Keith, 140.
P r o b a b ili
G l a m e s C a s t l e .