Above the road-bridge, and to the right of the wooded dean, are the noble trees and parks of Dunglass grounds.  The mansion-house, a handsome modern building, part of which rises to a height of five storeys, is built only some eight or ten feet from the brink of the dean, on its western or East Lothian side.  About fifty yards farther west are the ivy-covered ruins of a fine Gothic church, whose massive square tower and stone roof are still tolerably complete.  This church before the Reformation had collegiate rank, and is now the sole remaining relic of the ancient village of Dunglass.  In former times the Dunglass estate belonged to the Earls of Home, whose second title, borne to this day by the eldest son of the house, is that of Lord Dunglass.  But it was bought about the middle of the seventeenth century by the Halls, who own it still, and in whose family there has been a baronetcy since 1687.  The laird at the time with which we are now dealing was Sir James Hall, whose epitaph in the old church at Dunglass bears that he was “a philosopher eminent among the distinguished men of an enquiring age.”  He was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for many years, and was an acknowledged expert in Natural Science, especially in Geology.  His second son was the well-known Captain Basil Hall, R.N., the author of a once widely-read book of travels.

Behind the church, and about a hundred yards to the west of the mansion-house, are the offices—­stables, close boxes, coach-house, etc., all of a single storey, and built round a square paved courtyard.  The coachman’s house is on one side of this square, and the shepherd’s on the other.  The latter, which is on the side farthest from the “big house,” has its back to the courtyard, and looks out across a road to its little bailyard and a fine bank of trees beyond it.  It is neat and lightsome, but very small; consisting only of a single room thirteen feet by twelve, with a closet opening off it not more than six feet broad.  How a family consisting of a father, mother, and eight children could be stowed away in it, especially at night, is rather a puzzling question.  But we may suppose that, when all were at home, each of the two box-beds would be made to hold three, that a smaller bed in the closet would account for two more, and that for the accommodation of two of the younger children a sliding shelf would be inserted transversely across the foot of one of the box-beds.  Certainly, an arrangement of this kind would fail to be approved by a sanitary inspector in our times; and even during the day, when all the family were on the floor together, there was manifest overcrowding.  But the life was a country one, and could be, and was, largely spent in the open air, amid healthful surroundings and beautiful scenery.