House Of The Binns, Sergeant's Pond

A canal-like pond c.92m long by 14m wide, oriented north-south and located close to the west side of the West Drive. The pond is heavily silted and overgrown. An agricultural fence encloses the whole feature preventing access to its edges.

Various accounts refer to the enlargement c.1681 of an old pond fed by springs to form the Sergeant’s pond to water the horses of the Royal Scots Grey regiment. In 1935, when the regiment was camped at The Binns on a recruiting march, they again watered their horses at the Sergeant’s pond.

The pond features in one of the best known stories about General Tam Dalyell in which he played cards with the devil who threw the card-table into the pond in anger at losing a game. The marble table-top found in the pond in the dry summer of 1878 casts the eirie reality of material evidence on the story.

The pond appears on maps from Forrest 1818 onwards in its present form. The large scale OS maps show a slight protrusion at the south end of the west side, but otherwise the shape is a long rectangle.

Information from NTS (SCS) March 2013