mining in Britain. The mining of coal in Prestonpans began in the year 1210, and continued for centuries. Prestonpans at one point, had many breweries, all of which have now closed. The oldest brewery in Prestonpans belonged to the Fowler family and was built in 1720. The Fowlers obtained it in 1774 and it was in production into the 20th century. There was also a soap works in the town known as James Mellis and Co. The town was served, for several hundred years, by the harbour at nearby Prestongrange, known as Morrison's Haven or "Acheson's Haven". Fishing boats sailed from the harbour and herring was the most important catch. The harvesting of oysters was a lucrative industry up to the early twentieth century. Battle of Prestonpans The Battle of Prestonpans (also known as the Battle of Gladsmuir) was the first significant conflict in the second Jacobite Rising. The battle took place on 21 September 1745. The Jacobite army loyal to James Francis Edward Stuart and led by his son Charles Edward Stuart defeated the army loyal to the Hanoverian George II led by Sir John Cope. The victory was a huge morale boost for the Jacobites, and a greatly mythologised version of the story entered art and legend. A memorial to the Battle of Prestonpans in the form of a modest stonemason-built cairn sits close to the battle site. An earlier (and tellingly, much larger and more impressive) monument to Colonel James Gardiner, a Hanoverian who was mortally wounded on the field of battle, was also erected in 1853 near Bankton House where the Colonel lived. It was sculpted by Alexander Handyside Ritchie. A memorial in the parish church commemorates "John Stuart of Phisgul...barbarously murdered by four Highlanders near the end of the Battle". In 2006, the Battle of Prestonpans (1745) Heritage Trust was established on the initiative of the local people to ensure much better presentation and interpretation. It attracted private and Heritage lottery funding to achieve some of its initial goals. Battlefield Archaeology In 2008 the Trust commissioned Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division ("GUARD") to undertake a comprehensive survey, followed by selective excavation, of the battlefield. Although the site of the main battlefield is readily located today, fixed by such surviving features as the tramway embankment, interim findings announced in April 2010 indicate that the true site of the Highlanders' charge, based on concentrations of musket balls