Biggar  Covenanter Nuseum

Biggar  Covenanter Museum

The Covenanter Museum in Biggar is further down the road from the main museum at the church. The old farm building is impressive and must have been the property of a reasonably well off farmer, given its size and very solid brick construction. It has been sited under the lea of a hill and alongside a small stream – typical of a location in the seventeenth century that was sheltered and with clean running water nearby. The farmhouse is almost fortress like with bars across the windows, and at one end set in the wall, is a set of `jougs` – a metal collar on a short ( about 18 inches) chain fixed into the brickwork, for  securing a prisoner. Nearby is Robbie Burn`s famous saying of the Covenant – on a bronze plate set in a boulder.

The Solemn League and Covenant Cost Scotland Blood, Cost Scotland  Tears But it sealed Freedom`s sacred Cause

If thou`rt a Slave Indulge thy sneers

 Inside the farmhouse the  rooms are furnished with period pieces and tools, household utensils, and a rusty `Covenanters`  sword is displayed. Upstairs there is a display of the owner in period dress in his small office, while the main bedroom contains period furniture including a four poster  bed in which it is said Donald Cargill had slept just before he and Henry Hall were attacked at Queensferry – when Hall was critically injured by a blow from a carbine butt and subsequently died, and Cargill escaped.

Continuing on the A702 towards Edinburgh the Pentland Hills come into view and you will pass by the unmarked entrance to the farm on which was fought the battle of Rullion Green on 28 November 1666. The entrance is a simple tarmacadam path by a line of trees past Silverburn but before  you reach the Flotterstone Visitor Centre in the Pentland Hills Regional Park. If you intend visiting please remember the memorial is on a working farm and you will have to pass through a field probably with grazing sheep in it – watch where you step!. Permission to visit the memorial should be obtained from the farmhouse at the end of the road. 

                                     Next: Rullion Green