Prestonkirk

Prestonkirk
East Lothian
Prestonkirk Parish Church
Location
Location:	55°59’6"N, 2°40’52"W
Data
Population:	2,185
Post town:	East Linton
Postcode:	EH40
Dialling code:	01620
Local Government
Council:	East Lothian
Parliamentary constituency:	East Lothian

Prestonkirk is a parish a little north-east of the centre of East Lothian. It contains the villages of East Linton, and Old Preston. Clockwise, It is bounded by North Berwick, Whitekirk, Dunbar, Stenton, Whittinghame, Morham, Haddington, Athelstaneford and Dirleton. Originally, and so early as the 12th century, the parish was called Linton; during some time before the Reformation, it was called indifferently Linton and Haugh; after the Reformation, it was called Prestonhaugh; at a later period it got its present name of Prestonkirk.

The parish is bisected east-west by the A1 Great North Road as well the railway equivalent, the East Coast main line, originally part of the North British Railway. There are no stations in the parish as that of East Linton was closed in 1964.

Baldred, who flourished in the latter part of the 6th century and the beginning of the 7th, was long the tutelary of the parish, and is said to have dignified it by his residence, and founded its earliest church. Preston, the site of the church, was one of three villages which contended for his body after his decease. His statue long lay in the burying-ground, and was intended to be built into the church wall, but was broken in pieces by an unromantic mason. On the farm of Markle stand the ruins of an ancient monastery, considerable in extent, but unrefined in architecture, of whose history little is known.

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