Colonel Gardiner's Monument, Bankton House

Image: © kim traynor Taken: 25 Jun 2010

Monument to a Colonel of Dragoons, killed at the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745. What is astonishing is that it was raised by public conscription in 1853, more than a hundred years after the event. "Nearly 80 of the royal army officers were taken prisoner, many of them wounded, but thanks to the intervention of the Jacobite leaders no more than seven were killed. Among them was Colonel Gardiner, whose end is dramatically described by Dr Doddridge. Shot in the left breast at the beginning of the action, and soon afterwards in the right thigh, the Colonel stood his ground after his squadron had fled, and seeing a party of foot still fighting without an officer to lead them, he rode up and called out to them, 'Fire on, my Lads, and fear nothing.' A moment later he received a deep wound in the right arm from a scythe-blade, and having been dragged from his horse, was struck a mortal bow on the back of his head by a Highlander with a Lochaber axe. Taking up his hat in his left hand the Colonel waved it to his servant as a signal to retreat, with the words, 'Take care of yourself.' On returning two hours later with a cart, the man found that Gardiner had been stripped of his outer clothing and boots, and robbed of his watch and other valuables, and having been carried in semi-conscious condition to the manse of Tranent, he died there the following morning. That Gardiner fought bravely there can be no doubt, but Doddridge's narrative, which was given him by the Colonel's servant, is almost certainly untrue. Apart from the improbability of a man in his state of health being able to retain his powers of movement and speech after being so severely wounded, the evidence of his relative Cornet Ker, who was posted 'very near' him, seems conclusive. According to him the Colonel fell from his horse after receiving two gun-shot wounds in the right side. Having no servant or spare horse in attendance he was unable to remount, and almost immediately afterwards was brought to the ground by six cuts in the head." -- K Tomasson, F Buist, Battles Of The '45, 1962

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