by rathbone » 12 Jun 2006, 10:01
Inevitably, as the beach became popular, it became a regular feature of the lost and found columns in the local newspapers.
On 21 July 1859 Mr. Cotton, who was a tobacconist with premises in Princes Street lost a silver and platinum snuffbox which had been made in Russia. He offered a reward. On 28 August someone from the Laboratory, Lasswade, found a brooch.
On 27 September, 1860, some workmen engaged in drainage work at the east end of the beach, came upon something altogether more interesting.
They were laying new drainage pipes out across the sand. About four feet down they came across a roughly made timber box. It was lying due east and west and was very decayed. On breaking open one end of it, they found it half filled with sand, from amongst which they pulled out a bone, a shoe and a piece of felt.
Not knowing what else to do, they sent for a doctor. Dr. Littlejohn, and his colleague Dr. Hill duly arrived and the box was carfefully cleared of sand to disclose a full skeleton.
Along with the body were found a comb, the remains of woolen cloth and the other shoe. This one contained the bones of the foot, implying that the man was buried with his shoes on. There was no evidence of fractures in the skeleton and no weapons were found in the box or nearby.
The two doctors said that in their opinion, from the state of the skeleton, the person had been dead at least fifty years and it was concluded that it was that of some sailor, probably of a foreign vessel judging by the fact that the body had been placed with the head towards the east. He had presumably died near the coast and his companions had buried him here at a time when the neighbouring grounds and the greater part of the site of Portobello consisted of sand dunes and whin bushes.
It is to be assumed that the man was given a christian burial in one of the Portobello graveyards, though which one is not recorded.
I have nothing to say and I'm going to say it.