At the time of writing I am the newest member of Prestongrange Church and its shortest serving minister. Though I hope that this double honour will not long continue, I mention it to indicate my poor claim to write an introduction to this booklet. I am less aware than most of the achievements of the great men and women of the church in Prestonpans, amongst them my 27 predecessors in Preston Church or Prestongrange, and 10 in the Free Church or Grange Church.Many further names can be recalled with pride and gratitude, but the lives of most of the thousands who laboured with them here in Christ's Kingdom have faded in the mists of time. As we shall too; but the good news of Christ Jesus will be told as it always has been from generation to generation of those who live in the Pans.

Since they will be too modest to claim credit for their work, I shall express all our gratitude to those who have worked hard to prepare this booklet. Margaret Baillie, William Davie, Sandra Marshall, Margaret Rankine, Jean Thomson and lan Wallace (the team captain) have put in a great deal of work over many months. The fragments I have seen and heard, have left me eagerly looking forward to the result. For reminding us and for helping us to celebrate the lives of those who have been the church in Prestonpans we thank you all.

The 400th anniversary of a congregation deserves to be marked with a library, not just a booklet. And even though it is accompanied by a year of celebration, this booklet can only scratch the surface of the history we recall at this time. On the stage of Prestonpans every feature of the history of the Scotland and her Church has been acted out in microcosm.

The sixteenth century was the time of reformation. In the generation after John Knox, John Davidson, our first minister, was one of its most fearless champions, calling King and common people alike to the reformed faith. The seventeenth century was the time of the Covenants and Covenanters, who swore to defend the Presbyterian faith and its independence from the state. Among the ministers of Preston Church were three whose adherence to the Covenant brought them trouble.

The eighteenth century brought the Jacobite rebellions and the battle of Prestonpans, watched by the minister of the day from the church tower. The same century saw the flowering of the Scottish enlightenment and one of its leaders was a son of the manse at Prestonpans.The disruption which rocked the Church of Scotland in 1843, and ultimately strengthened it, concerned similar issues to the Covenants. Here in Prestonpans the minister of the time left the Kirk and, supported by many of his parishioners, established the Free Church of Prestonpans.