A history of Peeblesshire

Front matter

fMi

Cornell University Library

The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.

Preface

IH A D long entertained a wish to write a history of my native county, but the obHgations of a busy Hfe, independently of other reasons, postponed the undertaking until, after an absence of six -and -thirty years, I returned to dwell amidst scenes, of which I had treasured up some recollections and traditions.

I was not without an excuse for having formed this desire. The only available book on the subject was the Description of Twecddale, by Dr Alexander Pennicuik of Romanno, issued originally in 1715, and re-issued with notes in 1815, by the late Mr Brown of Newhall. Besides being out of date, Pennicuik's work, though in many respects curious and valuable, is little else than a topographic and botanical recital. After making a survey of the county in 1775, Captain Armstrong issued his Companion to the Map of Tweeddale, but this tract, while embracing some useful facts, is also chiefly topographic, and has been long out of sight. The next book concerning the shire, was a General View of the Agricultitre of the County of Peebles, by the Rev. Charles Findlater, minister of Newlands, issued in 1802. Find-

VI PREFACE.

later, a man of enlarged views and genial temperament, has presented an interesting account of rural progress until his own day, but necessarily abstains from matters of an historical character.

The attempt to compose a history, along with a general description of the county, has not been unattended with difficulties. Forming a secluded mountainous territory, Peeblesshire, though not distant from the centre of public affairs, is scarcely noticed in general Scottish history. Materials for a narrative of events require to be sought for almost entirely in original sources. For several years, accordingly, I have enjoyed the pleasant occupation of digging into old records, and thence drawing to the light of day such facts as bore on the raids, fightings, feuds, slaughters, and other lively occurrences of the period, when lairds lived in castles and cared very little for either law or government — when bailies and burgesses, emulating their betters, settled disputes by an appeal to " Jeddart staffs" and " whingers"^ — and when, seemingly, the only local tribunal that inspired terror, or secured prompt obedience, was the parish kirk-session. The following are the Records which have proved serviceable as concerns these and other illustrations of a past condition of society -.—The Records of the Privy or Secret Council of Scotland ; the Books of Adjournal (Records of Justiciary) ; the Records of the Justices of Peace for the sheriffdom of Peebles ; the Valuation Rolls of the same sheriffdom ; the Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs ; the Records of the

PREFACE. Vll

Royal Burgh of Peebles ; the Records of the Presbytery of Peebles ; and the Records of the Kirk-Sessions of the several parishes in Peeblesshire. As will be seen, I have been particularly indebted to that invaluable and too little explored repository of facts, the Records of the Privy Council. What this august body had to do with Peeblesshire, becomes only very obvious, when we call to mind that it indulgently heard complaints from everybody about everything, from a case of homicide to a debt of a few merks — from an act of rebellion to a quarrel between husband and wife ; a comprehensiveness of jurisdiction, during the old Scottish monarchy, of which some notable examples have already been presented in my brother's Domestic Annals.

Believing that few subjects are more distasteful to general readers than topography, I have, while shunning minute detail, resorted to the expedient of telling the story of estates in connection with the families who have successively possessed them ; or, in other words, endeavoured to describe the county through the palatable medium of anecdotic family history. Should this be deemed a scarcely satisfactory method of procedure, there is this to be said in its favour, that it enables a writer to shew how, through the expenditure of capital and exercise of taste, the naturally bleak lands of Scotland have been transformed during the last seventy or eighty years into a condition of beauty, fertility, and high commercial value. For facts in this department, I have, of course, had to rely mainly on private papers ; and for the liberal

Vm PREFACE.

manner in which my neighbours have opened their charter-chests for an examination of these documents, I now tender my best acknowledgments.

The accounts of local antiquities, including the numerous and interesting British hill-forts in Peeblesshire, are from personal inspection during the summer of 1863. For communications on rural and general progress, also on the geology and natural history of the county, I have been indebted to individuals who have kindly taken an interest in my undertaking.

I may confidently say that neither trouble nor expense has been spared on the maps and wood engravings with which the volume is illustrated, and I am hopeful that these embellishments will help to brighten up a narrative too apt to be dull. All the sketches have been taken by artists specially for the work, and may be relied on for . their accuracy.

The abbreviations employed are, P. C. R., for Privy

Justice of Peace Records ; C. R., Convention of Royal

Burghs Records ; B. R., Burgh Records of Peebles ; and

K. S. R., Kirk-Session Records.

W. C.

Glenormiston, \(ith May 1864.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Subject Illustrated.

Map of the County, from Ordnance Survey,

with corrections .....

Fancy Emblematic and Heraldic Heading Vignette — Sheep of Peeblesshire Stone Hammer Stone Axe Quern .

Stone Mortar Bracelet

Standing Stones, Sheriff-Muir Roman Camp at Lyne in its original form Roman Camp at Lyne in its mutilated state Milkiston Rings, present state MiLKiSTON Rings, original form Section of Henderland-Hill Rings Caerlee-Hill Fort Kittlegairy Fort, Soonhope .

Purvis-Hill Terraces RoMANNO Terraces

Vignette — Seal of Archbishop of Glasgow Vignette — Figures of two Red Friars Vignette — Old Armour .

Cardrona Tower, in ruins Door of a Bastel-house, Peebles

Fig.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Subject Illustrated.

James I. of Scotland Mason-marks on Tweed Bridge Town-Wall of Peebles .

Drummelzier Castle, in ruins .

Drochill Castle, in ruins Old Tower of Barns HoRSBRUGH Castle, in ruins (1856) Vignette — Border raid Neidpath Castle, eastern aspect Map of the County, as surveyed in 1608 Traquair House, front view Vignette — Figure of Hon. General Douglas Town-mansion of Williamson of Cardrona,

now an Inn ....

Vignette — Duke of Queensberry's coach Vignette — View of Peebles

Burgh Seal ....

Cross of Peebles, 1699 .

John Jameson, a mendicant fiddler

Chambers Institution, front view

Quadrangle, Cross, and PIall, Chambers Institution ....

Library and Reading Room, Chambers Institution

Stone Tablet in house of the Turnbulls

The Yett, entrance to Cross Keys Inn

Emblematic Fourth Figure .

Ruins of St Andrew's Church

St Nicholas with the Holy Rood

Ruins of the Cross Church

Vignette — Doorway to the Green

Crest of the Lords Yester, Neidpath Castle

20 21 22

25 26

28 29 30 31

33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Page

74 80 92

95 107 117 128 144

157 181 182 206

219 229 256 260 261

273 280

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

XI

Subject Ilhistrated.

Neidpath Castle, southern aspect Old Q. ....

Chapel Hill Venlaw House Kerfield House Arms over Doorway, Haystoun King's Meadows Darn Hall ....

PoRTMORE House . . .

Cringletie House Cowie's Linn

Vignette — Eddleston Water Old Bridge, Innerleithen .

Ruin of Nether Horsbrugh .

Pirn House ....

Lodge and Entrance, Glenormiston Glenormiston House Vignette — St Mar/s Cottage, Yarrow Bush aboon Traquair Old Gateway, Traquair House The Glen House .

Kailzie House Cardrona House .

Vignette — Wading Tweed on Stilts Barns House ....

The Black Dwarf's Cottage .

Hallyards House .

Lyne Church ....

Tombstone, Piers Cockbum's Grave Junction of Powsail and Tweed Dawick House

Fig.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Subject Ilhtstrated.

Ruins of Tinnies Castle Site of Lincumdoddie .

PoLMOOD IN Ruins Hunter of Polmood Standing-Stone, Tweedsmuir Church of Stobo .

JouGS, Doorway of Stobo Church Lord Chief Baron Montgomery Stobo Castle Rachan House Ruin of Wrae Castle .

Mossfennan House Castle Craig

Nether Urd ....

Lady Gifford's Well, Linton Medwyn House Garvald House Spitalhaugh House BoRDLANDs House Callands House scotston ....

RoMANNo House

Old Church of Newlands, in ruins Halmyre House Macbie Hill House Mausoleum at Macbie Hill La Mancha House .

Whim House Vignette — Girl wading Eddleston Water Geological Section Vignette — Game, Peeblesshire

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HISTORY

PEEBLESSHIRE.

PEEBLESSHIRE, one of the smaller counties of Scotland, lying near the Border, so called from its royal burgh, is bounded by Dumfries and Selkirk shires on the south, Lanarkshire or Clydesdale on the west, Mid-Lothian or Edinburghshire on the north, and Selkirkshire on the east. L'regular in outline, particularly in the east, the shire extends from north to south twenty-nine miles ; its greatest breadth is twenty-one miles, and its least breadth nine and a half miles. The county contains 226,899.206 acres of land, and 969.633 acres of water — total, 227,868.839 acres, or 356 square miles. Its lowest point above the mean level of the sea is about 450 feet, from which to about 1200 feet is the region of cultivation. The hills generall}' rise to a height of from 900 to 1500 feet. According to the Ordnance Survey, the greatest altitude attained within the county is 2754 feet, which is the height of Broad Law, in the district of Megget. Peebles, occupying an alluvial plateau at the height of 550 feet above the sea, is situated in 55° 39' 5" north latitude, and 3° 11' 15" longitude west of Greenwich.

Consisting mainly of the upper part of the valley of the Tweed, the county is variously and more familiarly known as TwEEDDALE, a designation which, in its old form of Tuedal, is sometimes assigned to it in state documents and historical writings in past times. Environed by mountain-ranges, and anciently bounded on its eastern frontier by the thickets of Ettrick Forest, Tweeddale long possessed a character of seclusion not to be expected from its near neighbourhood to the busy scenes of Mid- Lothian. Although neither very lofty nor striking in outline, the hills of Peeblesshire constitute a wild and pleasing pastoral region, intersected with alluvial vales, each watered by its tributary streamlet, gathered from innumerable rills which gurgle in sweet solitude down the recesses of the mountain-slopes. Excepting the Medwin Water, in the north-west, which runs towards the Clyde, and the North Esk, which, rising in the north-east, flows towards the Forth, also some lesser rivulets, all the streams of Peeblesshire are tributary to the Tweed, although one of them, the Megget, makes a circuit by its influx into St Mary's Loch, the parent of the Yarrow.

Moderate in volume — seldom more than from two to four feet deep, or beyond sixty to eighty feet in breadth — and abounding in rapids, Tweed is unsusceptible of navigation, and sinks in importance in comparison with the Tay and some other rivers in the north ; but, independently of the celebrity gained by its natural qualities, it has acquired distinction by forming the line of boundary between England and Scotland in the lower part of its course.

The source of the Tweed is found in the parish of Tweedsmuir, in the western part of the county, about 1300 feet above the level of the sea, where it rises at the base of a hilly range, from the further sides of which spring the rivers Annan and Clyde. Hence, the popular, though not quite correct rhyme :

' Annan, Tweed, and Clyde Rise a' out o' ae hill-side. '

A small fountain, usually considered to be ' the head of

INTRODUCTION. 1 1

Tweed,' at the base of a hill called Tweed's Cross, and named Tweed's Well, gives forth a small rivulet, which flows in a north-easterly direction, through the parish of Tweedsmuir, receiving on each side various tributary streams, including the Fruid and the Talla. From Tweedsmuir, the Tweed takes a northern course to Drummelzier, where it receives the Powsail and the united streams of Holms, Kilbucho, and Biggar, and forms the boundary of the parish of Glenholm. It next intersects Stobo parish, and then receives the Lyne, a stream augmented by the Tarth and some rivulets in the north-western part of the county. United with the Lyne, the Tweed pursues its way in an easterly direction, which, with few exceptions, it ever afterwards maintains. About a mile and a half below its junction with the Lyne, Manor Water joins it on the right, and proceeding through a gorge at Neidpath, arrives at Peebles, twenty-five miles from its source. At Peebles, the Tweed receives Eddleston Water on the left ; after which, proceeding through the parish of Peebles, Soonhope Burn falls into it on the left, and Haystoun Burn on the right ; it next separates the parishes of Innerleithen and Traquair, receiving several dashing small burns in its course. Near Innerleithen, it is augmented by the Quair on the right, and the Leithen on the left. Below Innerleithen, it receives the Walker Burn on the left ; two miles further down, it is joined on the left by Gatehope Burn, which here forms the boundary of the county ; after which it holds on its course amidst the hills of Selkirkshire, emerging a short way below the Yair, on the more open and rich valley adorned by Abbotsford, Melrose, and Dryburgh.

At this point, the Tweed receives, first, the Ettrick, which has been previously augmented by the Yarrow, and then the Gala, where it enters Roxburghshire, becoming now a river of more imposing dimensions, with banks more level than in the upper part of its course. Before leaving the rich vale of Melrose, the Tweed is joined by the Leader on its left bank, which is the only tributary of any note till it is increased by the Teviot on the right, near Kelso. The Teviot is the largest tributary of the

Tweed in its whole course, and almost doubles it in size. Passing Kelso on the left, and flowing majestically onward, it receives the Eden Water, and soon after enters the level district of the Merse, which it separates from Northumberland on the south. At Coldstream, the Leet falls into it on the Scottish side ; and from two to three miles further down, on the English side, it is increased by the sluggish waters of the Till. Some miles further on, it receives the Scottish river Whitadder, a large stream previously augmented by the Blackadder ; and shortly afterwards, passing the ancient town of Berwick-on-Tweed on its left, its waters are poured into the German Ocean.

From head to foot, the Tweed is computed to drain 1870 square miles. Through Peeblesshire, it has a course of forty-one miles ; Selkirkshire, nine miles ; Roxburghshire, nearly thirty miles ; and along Berwickshire, somewhat more than twenty-two miles ; making a total of 102 to 103 miles in length. Its fall from its source to Peebles is about 800 feet ; and from Peebles to Berwick, 500 feet ; or, reckoning its entire course, it has an average fall of thirteen feet per mile. Being undisturbed by traffic on its surface, and but slightly adulterated by liquid refuse from towns and manufactories, as well as possessing, in general, a pure gravelly bottom, its waters, except during floods, are remarkably clear and sparkling. Until comparatively recent times, occasional heavy falls of rain kept the river flooded for days, when it formed a broad sheet of turbid water, often destructive to the crops on its more level banks ; but now, from the general practice of draining, falls of rain are carried rapidly off, and if the river suddenly rises, it as suddenly subsides, rarely causing any serious injury during these paroxysms. For a long time, the Tweed was crossed by only two bridges — one at Peebles, and the other at Berwick ; but now it has several stone and other bridges, besides railway viaducts. Witliin Peeblesshire, it has some convenient fords, passable in ordinary states of the river.

The Vale of Tweed is generally of a pleasing sylvan character, the hills being never far from the banks of the river, while the

INTRODUCTION. 1 3

eminences and lower lands are frequently clothed by woods and plantations. As the ground recedes from the stream, except in the lower part of its course, the country becomes wild and pastoral, and rises into such elevations as equally to shut out Lothian on the north, and Dumfriesshire on the south. Though constituting part of what are sometimes called the Southern Highlands, Peeblesshire is not rugged, or, strictly speaking, picturesque. Its hills are, with few exceptions, rounded and soft in outHne ; nor does its geological formation admit of many shelving precipices or deep dells ; yet the descents are in some places abrupt, and clothed in natural shrubbery.

With its rounded grassy hills, offering the finest sheep-pasture, its alluvial vales, and clear- streams, the county is free of any properties detrimental to general salubrity. With the absence of stagnant pools or unwholesome marshes is now to be remarked a high degree of improvement by the reclamation of waste lands and subsoil drainage, resulting in a singular lightness and dryness of atmosphere. Pennicuik refers to the want of timber, and the little planting to be seen in Tweeddale, but even at the time he wrote, planting had begun, and it was carried on to such an extent in the early part of the present century as may now be considered excessive, though in all cases adding to the beauty of the landscape.

Peeblesshire has gone through the several well-known social phases common to the south of Scotland — gradually shaken off its primitive Celtic character, been Anglicised by processes afterwards to be described, and passing through the broils of an unsettled age, has by a series of developments attained to a condition no way differing from that of the more advanced parts of the Lothians. Its people are essentially of the Scottish Lowland type, with the character and dialect appropriate to a variety of the Anglo-Saxon race. The intonation of their speech, however, is peculiar. It is less soft and flexible than the speech of Selkirk or Roxburgh shires, and is marked by a strange aspirate or elevation of voice at the end of the sentences. It may also be remarked that, in Peeblesshire, it is not common, as in other parts of Lowland Scotland, to convert terminations of ay into «', as awd for away ; and two is here pronounced, not twa but tway, recalling the German zwey. For a, in some words, e is substituted ; dark and park, for example, being pronounced derk Sundperk.

Pennicuik remarks that, from the purity of the air of Tweeddale, the inhabitants are lively, and reach to a greater age than elsewhere. He says : ' Few cripples or crook-backs are seen in the country ; but the inhabitants for the most part are strong, nimble, and well proportioned ; both sexes promiscuously being conspicuous for as comely features as any other country in the kingdom, would but the meaner sort take a little more pains to keep their bodies and dwellings neat and clean, which is too much neglected amongst them ; and pity it is to see a clear complexion and lovely countenance appear with so much disadvantage through the foul disguise of smoke and dirt.' It is scarcely necessary to remark that, since the days of Pennicuik, a great improvement has taken place in point of personal and domestic cleanliness. The same author alleges that the people of Tweeddale have poor musical aptitudes. ' Musick,' he says, ' is so great a stranger to their temper, that you will hardly light upon one amongst six, that can distinguish one tune from another ; yet those of them that hit upon the vein, may match with the skilfullest.' As some relief to this assertion, we are told the people ' are more sober in their diet and drinking than many of the neighbouring shires, and when they fall into the fit of good-fellowship, they use it as a cement and bond of society, and not to foment or revenge quarrels and murders, which is too ordinary in other places.'

What changes Peeblesshire has in late years undergone, socially and physically, will afterwards appear. Provided with good roads throughout, the county has latterly been penetrated by railways in different directions; and accordingly from once having been one of the most isolated districts in the kingdom, it is now among the most accessible. Independently of its natural

INTRODUCTION. 1 5

attractions, of which its angling streams are not the least prized, the county abounds in memorials of the past — more particularly the hill-forts of an early British people, and those ruined feudal strengths of a subsequent era, which are so strikingly in contrast with the tasteful modern residences now spread throughout the county. An allusion to the gray and forlorn ruins which are seen on the Tweed — the species of ruins signalised in the graphic lines of Moir :

' Through Halls where lords and ladies swept, Now sweep the wind and rain ' —

reminds us that there is a charm associated with the Tweed, apart from any topographic peculiarity — the charm of historical and poetical association. As the frontier of what were for ages two hostile kingdoms, the whole valley whence the river gathers its waters is the prolific scene of story and ballad literature ; and for the full enjoyment of the scenery, we must allow the imagination to wander back for centuries, and be fascinated by the tender and chivalrous minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Along with several of the lesser streams — and we may name the Quair, Gala, Ettrick, Yarrow, Leader, and Teviot — the Tweed has been the theme of many popular lyrics of old and modern date ; its simple natural beauties ever serving as the subject of poetic imagery.

' I 've seen the morning

With gold the hills adorning, And the loud tempest storming before the mid-day ;

I 've seen Tweed's silver streams

Glitt'ring in the sunny beams, Grow drumly and dark as he roU'd on his way. '

So sings Mrs Cockburn,' in her elegant modernised version of the Flowers of the Forest; but long previously the river had been the subject of the well-known canzonet, Tweedside, written, as is believed, by John Lord Yester, eventually second Marquis of Tweeddale :

' I whistled, I piped, and I sang ;

I wooed, but I cam nae great speed.

Therefore I maun wander abroad,

And lay my banes far frae the Tweed. '

1 This lady was a daughter of Mr Rutherford of Femilee, Selkirkshire.

Next, came the mellow and flowing pastorals of Crawford/ The BiLsh aboo7t Traquair, The Broom of the Cowdenknowcs, and the newer version of Tweedside — this last-mentioned effusion being a perfect warble of birds mingled with the bleating of sheep — sounds the most prominent of all which salute the ear within the bounds of the county. Crawford might be said to have constituted himself poet-laureate of this favourite pastoral region, when he wrote

' What beauties does Flora disclose,

How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed !

* * * The warblers are heard in the grove,

The linnet, the lark, and the thrush ; The blackbird, and sweet-cooing dove.

With music enchant every bush.

Come, let us go forth to the mead ;

Let us see how the primroses spring ; We 'U lodge in some village on Tweed,

And love while the feather'd folk sing.

* * *

Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray?

Oh, teU me at mom where they feed ?

Shall I seek them on sweet winding Tay,

Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed. '

It cannot be mentioned without regret, that a river which has evoked such tender emotions, and must ever be an object of pleasing contemplation to the cultivated mind, should in reality be a source of local discord and demoralisation. We, of course, point to the brawls, assaults, and offences of various . kinds which are of constant occurrence in connection with the Tweed fisheries ; for it might with justice be said, that the practice of illegally destroying salmon at seasons when it ascends the river to spawn, and is unfit for human food — unhappily reduced to a species of clandestine profession — leads not only to serious moral and economic disorder, but almost doubles the amount of crime in the sheriffdom. Perhaps we are entitled to add, that recent legislation holds out some hope of at least a certain modification

' Robert Crawford, second son of Patrick Crawford of Dnimsoy, Renfrewshire died 1732.