Elphinstone, a collier village in Tranent parish, W Haddingtonshire, 2 miles S by W of Tranent town. It has a public school and a Primitive Methodist chapel (1867). Elphinstone Tower, 5 furlongs WSW, is a square three-storied pile of the 14th or 15th century, a ruin, but well preserved, the two lower stories retaining their stone vaulting, and the uppermost having been re-roofed with slate. In the hall, on the second story, eight carved escutcheons are over the fireplace. A mansion, built on to the tower in 1600, was demolished in 1865. The lands of Elphinstone were held in the 13th and 14th centuries by Lord Elphinstone's ancestors, and passed from them by marriage to the Johnstons. On a December night of vehement frost, 1545, George Wishart was brought from Ormiston by the Earl of Bothwell to Elphinstone Tower, where was Cardinal Beaton; and thence he was taken to St Andrews for trial and execution. Pop. of village (1861) 388, (1871) 488, (1881) 597.—Ord. Sur., sh. 33, 1863.

(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)