No parish has undergone more frequent and complete changes on its surface than Corstorphine. Notwithstanding its proximity to Edinburgh, which ought to have secured its improvement at an early period, it is only in comparatively recent times that it has been brought generally into cultivation.

From the substratum of the western meadow, which consists of live moss, composed of decayed trees, it is evident that this part of the parish was at one time overgrown with wood.  This may have been the case at the time the Romans were in Britain, for the whole of this part of the country is described by Tacitus as abounding in forests; but, at all events, this was the early state of the western meadow, and probably also of other parts of the parish.

When by accident or otherwise these trees were destroyed, the meadow would in the course of nature become a bog or mire, and water would collect and cover its surface during the rainy season of the year.  We have abundant evidence that it was at one time in this condition, from the name Goyle Myre, by which it is still known.

The castle of the Forresters, which was situated between the meadows, was surrounded by a moat and ditch full of water. The unsettled state of the country in the earlier periods of Scottish history would naturally lead them to increase the quantity of water which existed in the meadows as a means of defence, and it is not improbable that they admitted this additional supply from the Gogar-burn, at least, the appearance of the lochs in Bleaw's Map of Lothian would lead to this conclusion.

In the narratives of the marches of Leslie and Cromwell in 1650, the meadows and the fields at Gogar are described as full of bogs and marshes. The lochs had been drained before that period, but it is not known when this drainage took place.   Reference is made to it in an application which James Lord Forrester presented to Parliament in July 1661 (i), where he complains that "the whole meadow ground and low-lying lands was undone by the overflowing of the Gogar-burne, and that partly through the neglect of those who formerly were accustomed to cast and keep clear the ditches and stanks through which the water did naturally pass, and partly by the inbreaking of the said water in the lands of Redhewes."

Part of the ground formerly occupied by the lochs became a common, which was not divided until the middle of the last century, and then, and for many years afterwards, the whole meadows produced only natural grass, which was partly pastured by the villagers, and the rest let to tenants, who sold the grass for the dairies of Edinburgh.

In a MS. map of Mid-Lothian, by John Adair, in the Advocates' Library, dated 1684, the meadows are represented as completely covered by water, from which it would appear that irrigation was then used, as it is not likely that they would have been drawn in this manner by a surveyor of so great experience and accuracy, had the flooding been merely accidental, and occasioned by heavy rains.

About fifty or sixty years ago, the meadows were for the first time ploughed, and since that time they have been always under tillage, although the crops have been frequently destroyed by the autumnal floods,  This happened in the western meadow, so lately as 1836, when about 20 acres of green crop in the Goyle Myre were covered for some weeks with water and waterfowl, and not a vestige of them remained after the water subsided.   This and similar disappointments led the farmers to attempt to effect a more complete drainage of the meadows, by widening, straightening, and deepening the centre stank; and this operation, which cost about L.150, was performed in the spring of 1837, and has fully answered its intention, for no water has since lain on that meadow. In consequence of this improvement, the produce of the parish must be greatly increased since the time when the last Account was prepared, and it is expected that a similar improvement will be made in the drains of the eastern meadow, after the leases of the farms there, which are now nearly expired, have been renewed.

October 1839

i.  Thomson's Acts, vol. vii.