Morham

[citation needed] For centuries, a small castle or Tower house stood opposite the church but there are scant remains of it today.

[1] On 31 October 1580, hearing he would be arrested for the murder of Lord Darnley, Archibald Douglas escaped from Morham, the house of his wife Jean Hepburn, at midnight to England.

[2] The English ambassador Robert Bowes noted in July 1591 that Sir William Keith of Delny "lay in bed" once or twice at Morham with the owner, the rebellious Francis Stewart, 1st Earl of Bothwell.

[4] On 8 October 1573, a Tack was made to Agnes Sinclair's daughter, Dame Jean (or Jane) Hepburne, Mistress of Caithness, of the lands and barony of Morham with the mill of Morham, the lands of Mainshill, Pleuchfield, the Briad meadow, the feu mails of the Northrig and all other mails, ferms, profits and duties in the constabulary of Haddington, sheriffdom of Edinburgh which pertained to the deceased Dame Agnes Sinclair, Lady Morham, and fell to the Scottish Crown through the conviction in Parliament and forfeiture for treason of the 4th Earl of Bothwell, son and heir apparent of the said Dame Agnes, for 'the space and termes of ane yeir and farder induring oure will nixt and immediatlie follow and hir entre thairto, which entre was at the deceis of the said Dame Agnes Sinclair', for a yearly payment of £100 from Martinmas next, 'and als payand and deliverand all and sundrie the annuellis awand furth of the said lands....to thame that richt hes thairto as law will.'

[citation needed] The Statistical Account of Haddington states that the superiority of Mainshill had belonged to the 4th Earl of Bothwell (who briefly became the 1st Duke of Orkney in 1567), as part of the barony of Morham which he also possessed.

A few months later, in the Protocol Book of James Harlaw 1547 - 1585,[6] there is an Instrument of August 10, 1547, where Thomas Sinclair of Northrig again acted as Procurator for Robert Lauder of The Bass.

Also, with the earlier demise of the Knights Templar, their two Temple-lands in Morham passed to an earlier Sir Robert Lauder of The Bass, and remained in that family's possession until their incorporation in a charter of the new Barony of Drem for Thomas Hamilton, Lord Bynning, Secretary of Scotland, confirmed at Edinburgh 30 July 1614, wherein it is recorded that the Temple-lands at Morham (and others at Tyninghame) were "previously possessed by the Lord of The Bass".

[citation needed] The people of Garvald and the general public once had a right to travel with carts &c., to and from Haddington, &c., by an old road through the Hagg's Muir, on the farms of Northrig and West Bearford in Morham parish.