Saturday 30 July 2011: John Porteous' gravestone in West Linton Graveyard

While John got the newspapers, I wandered off for another visit to West Linton graveyard. I have it in my head to go and gradually photograph every gravestone there as well as making a note of the text on them as far as it's still readable. Just to record what is left while it's still possible to see most of the inscriptions. It's already too late for some of the tombs.

This one was randomly chosen to be the first, mainly because it concerns a previous inhabitant of Macbiehill, where we live now.

It reads:

Here lies John Porteous, mason, son to George Porteous, in Macbiehill, who dyed the 21 of July 1784, aged 27 years.T

he name Porteous still has many entries in the local telephone book, so definitely a local family. Does anyone still visit John, or remember him? Did he make gravestones in his job as mason? And did he foresee when he made them, how soon it would be time for someone else to make his gravestone? I won't ever know the answers to any of those questions, but for a brief moment in time this morning I did think of John, who was born in 1757, and remembered him.

• DMC-FS30:
• f/3.3:
• 1/500":
• 5.0mm:
• ISO 80

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