The rural village of Ratho lies just to the South of the M8 extension between the Newbridge Roundabout at Huly Hill and the Cat Stane at Edinburgh Airport, and West of the district of Gogar, some seven miles West of Edinburgh city centre. At the South-western end of the village is Tormain and on the North-western and is Platt Hill, the locations of ancient religious and domestic sites.
Ratho Kirk from Baird Road
The village today has two churches, a Catholic church towards the top end of Main Street, and the part-medieval St. Mary's Kirk on Baird Road, just to the North of the well-known historic Bridge Inn, by the banks of the Union Canal. Click here for a location map provided by StreetMap.
Ratho itself is an ambiguous placename. A couple of local forms found on communion cups dated 1684 give the name as Rutha and Rotha, and earlier spellings in land charters include the likes of Rathew, Ratheu and Rathow. Some historians derive it from ratho, a Latinised form of Gàidhlig rath, meaning "fort", and certainly, local lore suggests a fort on Platt Hill. Of course, Gàidhlig placenames do occur in this area, not least the nearby Dalmahoy and Balerno. Yet it is unwise to attempt to derive all placenames in the Lothians from Gàidhlig roots, as many amateur etymologists have often attempted. Likelier leads can come from considering that locals in Ratho have traditionally pronounced the name as Rathae, which might derive from Scots rathie, meaning "good" in the context of "a good harvest" (a rathie hairst), and which would make a certain amount of sense in an ancient farming community. More convincingly, the local pronunciation can also suggest Brythonic (Old Welsh) rhathau (pron. "hrath-aye"), meaning "clearings", and to an extent, this could make sense of the origins of the village as vaguely placed between the two ancient sites (presumably cleared of undergrowth) on Platt Hill and Tormain. Further weight is given to this etymology when one considers the indisputably Brythonic aspect of the now defunct East Lothian placename, Penratho, for Pen Rhathau (Watson, p.355).
St. Mary's Parish Kirk (Kirk of Scotland) was founded in 1243, and records also exist in that century of the Fief of Ratho and Bathgate being bought by Alexander III from the de Bohun earls for the then huge sum of £989 in 1292, and yielding 250 Merks in 1288-89 (Archie Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom, Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1989, pp.587 & 592). In 1444, the teinds and patronage of the parish of Ratho passed over to the new Collegiate Kirk of Corstorphine through a Papal Bull. Ratho Kirk continued to be associated with the Corstorphine Collegiate Kirk until the Reformation, at which point it once again became a seperate parish kirk. The dedication to the Virgin Mary was also reflected in a Lady's Well in the immediate locality of the kirk.
Ratho Kirk Main Door
Within the modern entrance wall is an old stone bearing the sword and cross emblem of the Knights Templar, and according to one local theory, this signifies that a Knight Templar was buried in the original kirk.
The Templar Stane
Little actually remains of the C13th kirk, but the bell tower in the west wing has survived along with the entire Western wall:
West Wing and C13th Bell Tower - North-west Corner
West Wing and C13th Bell Tower - South-west Corner
In the above photograph, the remnant of a Norman arch can also be made out on the right of the Western wall. This arch was, in fact, the main door of the original building, and is shown in the following photograph in more detail:
Norman Arch, West Wing
This partially-surviving arch can be compared with the surviving examples locally, such as those at Abercorn, Ecclesmachan, and Strathbrock.
In various older sources, reference is made to the Lady Well, a holy well in the vicinity of the kirk. According to the First Statistical Account of Scotland:
Before the Reformation, Ratho was a parsonage, under the provostry of Corstorphine; and, as every parish, in times of Popery, had a tutelar saint, that of Ratho had been dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This appears, not only from tradition, but from this farther circumstance, that the consecrated well near the church, a copious stream of very pure water, still bears the name of the Lady's Well.[1]
However, the precise location of this well seems to have largely passed from local knowledge, and is no longer marked on modern OS maps. Information from Mark Phillips of the Ratho Kirk website suggests that the well may have been in the vicinity of the modern entrance to the kirkyard. Certainly, the wasteland field immediately South of the kirk entrance is extremely boggy, and often flooded, and a large pile of overgrown rubble exists at the apparent source of this water, just over the wall by the roadside:
The Lady Well Remains?
The Lady Well Remains?
Interestingly, though, the 1855 OS map shows another well to the West of the kirk in a field owned by Ratho Hall:
1855 OS Map
The following photographs show the structure which is now in the precise location indicated on the 1855 OS map (NT 136 708):
Ratho Hall Pump House
Ratho Hall Pump House
Ratho Hall itself dates from 1798, and the above structure is clearly also in a Georgian style. It seems likely, therefore, that it was built as part of the estate gardens, specifically as an aesthetic structure to house an ancient well, or at least a well which had some local traditional significance.
According to the current owners of Ratho Hall, however, this "well" was in fact a pump-house for another well slightly to the West, on the South-east foot of Platt Hill, in the vicinity of the ruins of the old Pop Inn, by the canal banks. This well is marked on the 1955 OS maps.
Intriguingly, Ratho Hall was also the location of a whisky distillery in the nineteenth century, according to the Rev. James Clason, writing in The New Statistical Account of Scotland:
There is here a distillery connected with the Ratho Hall property, and rented at present by the Messrs Buchan. It employs in superintendence and work eleven individuals. The quantity of whisky distilled is from 800 to 1000 gallons in the period, or about 42,000 gallons in the year. The spirit made here is much esteemed by competent judges.[2]
It may be that one of the wells at Ratho Hall was the Lady Well, but even if not, these wells could also have an ancient provenance which is currently obscure.
thanks are due to Mark Phillips of Ratho Kirk, Freddie Small of Ratho Hall,
and Margaret Jones of Newbridge for assistance with this page
footnotes
[1] James Robertson, "Parish of Ratho", in The Statistical Account of Scotland (Edinburgh: Creech, 1791-99), Vol.1, p.260.
[2] James Clason, "Parish of Ratho", in The New Statistical Account of Scotland (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1834-45), p.96.