One of the images in the YHS collection - above - shows a 'Liberal Picnic and Demonstration at Yetholm'. It is undated, but it was used in a newspaper report of the event in the Jedburgh Gazette, which can be seen below, showing that the gathering took place in August 1910. The main subject for discussion seems to have been the need for small holdings in the county of Roxburghshire. A popular topic, no doubt, in this rural constituency. However, another report of the picnic shows that other, less parochial, issues were touched on. According to the Edinburgh Evening News (8th August 1910) 'Sir John Jardine, M.P. for the county ... referred to the Woman's Suffrage Bill. For his part, he said, he was not going to make up his mind on that question until he consulted the women and also the male portion of the constituency which he represented' - a rather vague, non-committal sort of answer. How many just came along for the picnic? Unfortunately, as the report in the Edinburgh Evening News makes clear, the 'rain fell heavily and the gathering had to adjourn to the public hall.' Presumably the photograph was taken before the unseasonal rain set in. Somewhere in the crowd, probably, are several Yetholm Worthies from this period, of whom we have no photographic record. The newspaper report gives the names of a number of Yetholm figures who appear in the annals of the village quite frequently in the early 20th-century: John Cairns, John R. Watson, Thomas Graham and Thomas Kennedy. However, as with the previous blogpost on Summer garden parties in Yetholm, it is a bit too late to try and fit their names to the faces looking at the camera! This blog posted on Election Day 2024. For an insight into how rowdy elections could be in the nineteenth century, see the blogpost 'Roaring, groaning and hissing' - A Rowdy Election in Yetholm' from 2019 - click HERE
0 Comments
July and August are the months for Fetes, Garden Parties and, as here, 'Sales of Work'. The postcard image above is dated 1909. It looks like the event took place in the manse garden - and the abundant vegetation suggests that it did indeed take place at high summer. The gentleman in a boater flanked by two boys in kilts in the Rev. Carrick Miller. The young man to his right appears to be taking notes and may perhaps be a newspaper reporter - ? Unfortunately we have been unable to find any newspaper reports which gives details of this event. The second postcard, below, shows a similar 'Sale of Work' which took place four years later in 1913, once again probably in the manse garden. As in the first image, the Rev. Carrick Miller can be seen - apparently listening to a speech by one of the well-upholstered ladies who are standing nearby. Presumably we are seeing the opening of the event by a local dignitary. There appear to be few men present on this occassion. Most of the women are wearing their best summer hats, but also seem to be dressed for cooler weather than there was at the 1909 event. Who are the grand-dames who appear to be the focus of attention? Might the lady standing near the padded-leather chair - apparently the one who is talking - be Mrs Wauchope, widow of General Andrew Wauchope, the landed proprietor of Town Yetholm? Unfortunately the speaker's face is rather blurred, but it may well be her. A photograph of Mrs Wauchope, dressed in similar dark (mourning?) clothes and probably taken at around the same time can be seen in the image below for comparison. Jean Wauchope remained active in Yetholm life for several years after her husband's death, regularly staying at Yetholm Hall. ![]() Although the identity of the lady speaking is unclear we do know the names of some of the other women/girls who are present. There is a message on the back of this card (right) which gives family chit-chat ("We were pleased to hear that you got all safe home. How we did miss you all. Mother said she was fair lonely after you all went away . . . fathers pains have been very sore these few days . . . "). It was written by someone called Bella and is addressed to someone called Meg. Bella writes "you [Meg] and Esther are on this card". Isabella and Meg are presumably sisters and Esther may be too, but who exactly they were and which of the faces in the crowd listening on can be linked with these names is lost. Take your pick from the magnified image below of local ladies and girls listening politely to the speech! ![]() The 1909 card also raises an intriguing question of identity. Strolling behind the Rev. Carrick Miller is a distinguished chap with a white beard. Who is he? Is he the same person who appears in another image in the YHS collection, shown below? The man on the horse seems to be a local genteman, but no record of his identity was made when this image was added to our collection. Any suggestions would be welcome! As with the identities of Meg, Isabella and Esther - all presumably from a humbler social background - the details of what was once a brightly coloured summer day over one hundred years ago have faded from memory. Yetholm's Festival Week sees the advent of our 2024 exhibition - 'Everything You Needed' - a look at the shops and traders which once made Yetholm the metropolis of the Bowmont valley. Many thanks to Dorothy Sharpe who has collected and prepared the material on display. We also take the opportunity of the summer months (when we can store away the seating used in the winter for our talks) to put up our semi-permanent displays on bondagers and the 'bondage' system in the Borders/Northumberland, as well as a feature about Bob Fraser a prize-winning local shepherd and sheep-dog-trainer. We hope this will make the centre a memorable place to visit for the many Cuthbert's Way pilgrims and general tourists who visit us during the summer months - so far the comments in our visitors book are enthusiastic.
We will leave the display up until the end of September. Open every day - 10.00-4.30 - Free. At some point, probably in the late 1950s, a researcher from St Andrew's University visited Yetholm kirkyard. Her name was Betty Willsher and she was later to published several highly regarded books on Scottish graveyards and gravestones - more information about her can be found on Wikipedia, click HERE. While visiting Yetholm her attention was drawn to a gravestone along the wall of the graveyard, which she photographed. Her photographs can now be found on the Canmore digital archive - click HERE. Her images of the gravestone which intrigued her can be seen above (click on each to expand). The carvings on the back and sides are charming and the text on the front enigmatic. It is clearly in Latin but, as Betty Willsher, notes 'it is . . . very hard to make much of it!' The stone has been lost for several years now. Not that it had been removed, but ivy had grown on the wall behind it and engulfed both it and several of the other interesting stones which are adjacent. Since 1929 graveyards around churches have been the responsibility of local authorities rather than the Church of Scotland. Currently this maintainance consists of periodic visits with a motor-mower and health-and-safety surveys resulting in gravestones being overturned (much to local outrage). No attempt is made to cut back shrubbery. Many gravestones in Yetholm kirkyard now have sycamore and holly bushes growing from seeds which have lodged at their base and which remain untouched after a visit from the motor mower. Grave enclosures are never tidied - those for the ministers Rev. Blackie and Rev. Baird are a jungle. Interestingly the photo on the right above shows the yew trees in the background, which surround the old Pringle family enclosure, neatly trimmed - currently these are out of control and that corner is a wilderness. Recently we have cut back some of the ivy in order to bring back in to the light the stone which so attracted Mrs Willsher. The photograph below left shows the site before we set to work, while the one on the right shows it after the overgrowth had been cut away. The mysterious stone is marked with an arrow. It is clear that at some point someone has collected together many of the most interesting carved stones and lined them up against the wall, but when this was done and where they originally stood is unknown. This may even have taken place when the new kirk building was erected in the mid-1830s. Inevitably all of them show some wear and many are unreadable. The ivy has also done damage, not only eroding the surface, but also pushing them forward or tugging them backwards - several of the stones, including the mystery one, are now leaning at angles which make them difficult to see clearly. The Latin gravestone was worn when it was photographed by Betty Willsher and it seems to have degenerated somewhat. We also uncovered adjacent stones and photographed them too. In the early 1990s Elspeth Ewan of Yetholm painstakingly transcribed the inscriptions on every stone in the kirkyard, her results being published by the Borders Family History Society. Thankfully she was able to read some of the inscriptions on some of the other symbol stones, which now seem to be unreadable. Her transcriptions along with the photographs we took will hopefully help preserve these sadly eroding memorials. Elspeth noted the stone in question but, like Betty Willsher, was unable to read it. It is stone number 23 in her catalogue, which she describes as 'Symbolic stone with illegible inscription: MA[RIE] [BENN]ETT (?). We hoped to be able to make another attempt at translation and took several photographs from different angles and in different light to see the text could be made more legible. Could it really be for a lady called 'Bennett' - not an otherwise attested surname in the area? And what of the rest of the extensive inscription? One of the photographs is shown below: The very top of the stone is so eroded to be entirely unreadable. Most of the rest has a scattering of letters, words and eroded patches, which it is difficult to make any sense of. 'Nocte Cadit', for example, means 'night falls', but the preceding word is worn away. Fortunately the very bottom line has four very clear words: 'Expectans Acta Suprema Dei'. Fortunately, too, we nowadays have a tool available which was not around when Betty Willsher or Elspeth Ewan were doing their work - namely Google. A short word-search revealed the source of the entire text. In 1685 a French Protestant fled from Roman Catholic persecution when the revocation of Edict of Nantes repealed freedom of worship. His name was Maximilien Misson. He found refuge in England and in the 1690s accompanied the son of the first Duke of Ormond when he went on a Grand Tour. While on this tour he took notes and, on his return, worked them up and published them as A New Voyage to Italy with a Description of the chief towns, churches, tombs, libraries, palaces, statues, and antiquities of that country, published in London in 1695. It became a popular text, much republished - a kind of Lonely Planet guide. When visiting churches Misson often transcribed the Latin epitaphs carved on grave monuments. He noticed one such in a church in Naples, on the tomb of a certain John Alefelt, a Danish gentleman who died while travelling. Misson's picture and his transcription of this text can be seen below: It would appear that whoever designed the Yetholm gravestone has copied the first six lines of this epitaph, along with the penultimate couplet, to produce the following poem: Ut flos mane viret, tepida productus ab aura, Languescit flaccus vespere, nocte cadit. Sic nos mortales orimur, morimurque miselli, Certaque vivendi, non datur ulla dies. Praesentis vitae est cursus labyrinthus, in illum, Ex utero intravi, morte vocante abii. ………….. Nunc jaceo, Patriae longè tumulatus ab oris; Judicis expectans acta suprema Dei. Which can be very roughly translated: As a flower grows green in the morning, warmed by the breeze, It languishes in the evening and falls at night. Thus we mortals are born, we die miserable, Wanting to live, no more days are given. The course of the present life is a labyrinth; I entered from the womb, I leave, called by death. ………… Now I lie buried, far from my native land, Awaiting judgement from the mouth of God Almighty himself. Thank you to Ian Clark for help with this translation. With this Latin text as a guide it is now possible to make out many of the hard-to-read letters and words on the stone - and to fill in blank patches. The Latin text, in fact, scans on to the stone perfectly. The opening lines perhaps help explain the motif on the reverse of the Yetholm gravestone. Betty Willsher notes that it is 'perhaps meant to be a tree of life, or the Tree of Temptation and fall. Whatever, it is the most primitive tree ever!' Well, if it is meant to be a stylised flower rather than a tree then perhaps the cutter didn't do such a bad job. The symbol ultimately has its origin in the Bible: “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, But the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1 Peter 1. 24-5 - and see Isaiah 40. 6-8). Sadly this side of the gravestone seems to have degenrated since Betty Willsher's photograph was taken - and it is very hard to push into the ivy to get an photograph of the now-leaning stone: None of of this gets us any closer to identifying the person who was buried beneath this stone. What Elspeth took to be 'Marie Bennett' is actually the words 'Manet Viret'. There seems to be room for a couple of lines of writing above the start of the Latin poem, which more than likely once told us the name of the person buried, but this area is so badly eroded that nothing can be made out. The stone must date from the first half of the eighteenth century and there cannot have been many in Yetholm at that time who had the learning or the taste for such a Latin memorial. A minister, perhaps? The Rev. Robert Collville died in 1731? A single letter 'E' is visible floating above the Latin text - might it be the final letter of his name? The only other gravestone in Yetholm kirkyard is for the George Story, the village schoolmaster, so a predecessor in the role may also have designed a similarly erudite memorial - ???
In the absence of a name, the broad edges of the stone contain bone emblems and, on either side, two males figures, dressed in early 18th-century style clothing, which could almost be a portrait. Sadly, they too have degenerated in recent years. The photograph below, which is not as clear as the one taken by Miss Willsher, is the best impression obtainable: Yetholm History Society were recently gifted a trove of images by the Tokeley family. Some were familiar, but the hoard also included several unique images which we are extremely grateful to add to our archive, Some of these images have been used in recent blogs - for example HERE (Fasterns E'en) and HERE (horse racing). The picture shown above, of John Wakeford, boot maker, is another fascinating example from this hoard.
John Wakeford's family background was typical of many in this area. His father (also called John) was born in Colstream and worked, usually as a coachman in upper-middle class households, on both sides of the border. John himself was born in Kirknewton in 1881. He went to various schools in both England and Scotland, including a short period in Yetholm. In 1891 he is living with his family in Belford, Northumberland. In 1901 he is living with his parents, aged 19, and seven siblings, in Gordon, Berwickshire - at that point he is working as a ploughman. He married Isabella Scott of Harrietfield on 26th January 1906. in 1911 he is working as a ploughman and living at a cottage at Primside Mill, near Yetholm. The couple have two children. In 1921 he is living with Isabella and three children (a son James died aged 1 in 1914) in 'Church Lane', Town Yetholm, and working a a roadman. At some point thereafter he set up as a cobbler - the newspaper adverts start appearing in 1924. Given that, as referenced above, he learned his trade from watching a bootmaker called Watson at work in Huntsman's Cottage, then it looks like he saw his opportunity to start up in that trade himself after the death of John Robert Watson in February 1924. [The tale that he watched 'John Watson's grandfather' can't be right - John Watson was from Jedburgh and only came to the village c.1908. That he learned from John Watson himself seems more likely. For more about this interesting man see HERE. John and Isabella celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1956, at which date they were still living in the 'Border Boot Stores' (see above). The business seems to have closed soon after, probably when John died in April 1961. This was a period which saw the disappearance of many village shops. Coincidentally this year's YHS Festival Exhibition will be focussed on many of these local enterprises which have all now sadly been driven out of business. John's wife, Isabella Scott, died in 1966. Social and economic change also had its effect on the Wakeford family. Of their three surviving children, son James moved to Aberdeen and then, in 1957, emigrated to South Africa, where he died in 1998. Daughter Agnes married Percy Pierez (from Antigua) and lived in London, where she died in 1998. Only John remained in the Borders, dying in 1990. The photograph at the top of the page was taken outside Harden Cottage, where Mr Wakeford had his business at that time (1930s?). This house was later the home of Tom Tokeley who, very sadly, has recently died, and through whose devotion to the community of Yetholm photographs such as this one have survived. YHS is very grateful to both Tom and his family for handing on these relics to us for the curiosity of future generations. Locals and visitors to Yetholm will remember that Tom annually put out a colourful display of bedding plants in front of the cottage. One of the the images which the family have passed on to us shows us the front of the cottage in all its splendour, taken in August 1996 (below). John Wakeford would probably have been quite surprised to see how things had changed and what had been simply a rough pedestrian area in front of his shop window had become a garden! The photograph below shows the Wakeford gravestone in the new cemetery, on the Morebattle Road.
Text by Margaret Rustad, 2024 The earlier years of this century can be accounted for by oral sources; many local people had anecdotes of Mrs. Wauchope’s time living here after her husband’s untimely demise in the Boer War at Magersfontein, commemorated on his memorial on Town Yetholm Green. The picture of this lady is not entirely sympathetic, and it’s suggested that she regretted that her husband had not lived long enough to be knighted, as she felt that a title would have been welcome. However, she was a benefactor to the village, particularly in the presentation of the Wauchope Hall to the village in her husband’s memory. Tom Tokely’s mother Annie remembered the fearsome lady using her walking stick to clear children out of her path if she was out walking. After the house had been purchased by the Beveridges, her former cook and housekeeper (or perhaps maid?) stayed in ‘The Old Hall Guest House’ as it was then called, and took particular pleasure in staying in the bedroom which had been hers (top right as you look at the house from the garden), because this would definitely have displeased her! The black poplar trees in a group opposite the house in the garden are said to have been planted at her wish to provide a shady, sheltered spot for taking afternoon tea. On an early visit here shortly after purchasing the house in 1980 we met Robin Butler and his brother John, who then ran their building business together. John recalled that as a boy he had helped his father empty the cellar of wine and spirits at the beginning of WW2 in order to transport them to Edinburgh; the house was being requisitioned. The History Society already has a scan of a small newspaper-cutting concerning the use of the house as an Officers’ Mess. We understand that the walled garden became a smallholding during the war. In 1981, during our first summer living here a lady came to our door: she was visiting Mrs. Krueger who then lived in Morebattle and had heard that a ‘normal’ (!) family had bought the house, and she was encouraged to call without previous notice. Her story was that she had been evacuated here from Edinburgh with her bedridden mother and a toddler. She herself was pregnant and her husband, a naval officer, had been posted missing; subsequently she heard that he had died. She shared the house with another family. Despite this distressing personal situation, she could look back and tell us that she was happy living here! Another pair of visitors that summer were the Mackinnons. Carol Butler knew their twin daughters well when they were renting the house in the 60’s, and as they were visiting her she too encouraged them to call in on this ‘normal’ family! Bill Mackinnon was wearing the kilt, as was his wont. He had been teaching English at Kelso High School. His wife (Grethe?) was Norwegian, and after living here they moved to Bergen, where he lectured in English at the University. Through mutual acquaintances in Norway (which is a small world) I can relate that he was a weel-kent figure in Bergen, striding around in his kilt! Mrs. Mackinnon had a full-size weaving-loom up in one of the bedrooms, and it is probably they who installed a ‘Jøtul’ woodburning stove in the dining-room – which we still use, and on which we cooked during the Great Blizzard.... Their family subsequently called in later on another occasion to see what they could remember of their time here. Needless to say, it was a huge but very enjoyable coincidence that two half-Norwegian families have enjoyed living here. After the house was sold to the Beveridges, Anne & David (son of George & Jean) converted the stables/chauffeur’s/gardener’s flat ad loose boxes into two semi-detached cottages, now known as Stable Cottage (which Tom Broad and his late wife Margaret eventually purchased) and Hall Cottage, which we subsequently purchased, so that it has reverted to the same ownership as the house, and gives us valuable, safe road access onto the back lane instead of the precipitous driveway out onto the blind corner on Kelso Road. Mrs. Beveridge apparently slaved over the house virtually single-handed, stripping and decorating; an internal door was built on the lower ground floor to separate the basement from the rest of the house, thus rendering it slightly less draughty, and the basement stair rebuilt in wood, though the original, even steeper, stone stair can be seen poking out at the bottom. The stone staircase to the first floor was also clad in wood; it is said that the steps were very worn, possibly as a result of episodes when it was an officers’ mess.... Handbasins were installed in the four main bedrooms. The house then became a thriving guest house under Mrs. Beveridge’s management. A kitchen was installed upon the ground floor (there is the original kitchen, complete with range, in the basement) and a serving-hatch put through into the present dining-room. Villagers recall Burns Suppers and Christmas Dinners here. The guest house was in great demand, especially at the time of the Kelso Ram Sales. About 2 years before we purchased the house in 1980 Mrs.Beveridge sold the house to someone known as ‘Bobby’ Coles. She no longer wished to live in the house where her husband had died a while previously. (George Beveridge was apparently, according to the Rev. Joe Brown, a horse-breaker of great skill and patience.) Mr. Coles enjoyed country sports and the associated lifestyle. He caused the wall between a small room at the front of the house and the larger room behind it to be removed, thus knocking the 2 rooms into one large, well-lit sitting-room. His other mark on the property was to cause a physical division between the house and Hall Cottage, leading to the necessity for the owners of this house to use the dangerous access onto Kelso Road. (James Wauchope later on kindly gave us permission to erect a mirror on his land on that blind corner; Borders Regional Council had refused permission for us to put it on the roadside verge.) We moved here in April 1981 with two young daughters; another daughter arrived in 1982. We installed secondary glazing where shutters did not exist, and a very basic range cooker in the ‘new’ kitchen, subsequently replaced by an oil-fired Stanley range cooker with central heating. Apart from that we have concentrated on maintenance, especially of the roof and chimneys. We have also landscaped the scrappy gardens between the house and Hall Cottage into a sunny courtyard to be enjoyed by both households. Mrs Beveridge was a keen gardener and we can now enjoy mature trees and shrubs planted by her. The walled garden has been a source of fun and pleasure for many people over our years here: camps, barbecues, parties, fundraisers... the Guides in particular met here on Mondays throughout the warm months for campfires, rounders and woodcraft. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, to round off this series on Yetholm Hall, a somewhat enigmatic glimpse of social life in the Hall in the early 20th century. One of the postcards in our collection is shown above. Unfortunately it is difficult to read, although it was clearly sent from 'The Hall, Yetholm, 10th August 1904' and is addressed to a Mrs Muir of Grimstone Avenue, Folkestone. Census records show that in 1901 a 35 year old widow called Frances Muir was living at that address, along with five children (+ two neices & five domestic servants - two of them French) - all the children were born in India. Clearly a relatively well-off family with colonial connections.
We also have in our collection a newspaper cutting (below) which lists guests resident at the Hall in 1907, who attended the Buccleugh Hunt Ball in November of that year - a fascinating glimpse of the social circles (military, imperial) around Jean Wauchope. Two of the guests are called Muir - the 'Miss K. Muir' may be the Kathleen Mary Muir who is listed in the 1901 census - she would have been 17 in 1907. The postcard seems likely to have been sent by someone who was part of this coterie. Might it even have been sent by Mrs Wauchope? Unfortunately there is no readable signature. When the current owners of Yetholm Hall were redecorating the entrance hall of the house they discovered three wall paintings that had been hidden for many years. The paintings are quite large (3' X 2'), monochrome, and with tromp-l'oeil scrolls. The one shown above can be identified as nearby Cherrytrees house - as can be seen by comparing it with the postcard images of Cherrytrees shown below. The painting does not show the two side-wings but, according to The Buildings of the Scotland, ed Kitty Cruft et al., 'the single-storey and basement wings ... were added by Adam Brack Boyd in 1852'. The painting must, then, date from before 1852. Rather crudely executed, the postcard on the left below shows that the amateur artist has been equally free with the background landscape, giving a general impression rather than an exact representation. The other two paintings are shown below (click on each to see a larger version). In both, the background landscape seems even more fantastical - more like the mountainous Highlands than the Cheviot Hills. That said, the the hill in the background of the image below left, with a cliff scar on the lower slope, might possibly be meant to respresent Staerough - ? Might these two paintings be giving us a glimpse of other local sites? Both pictures seem to show farm steadings, rather than an elegant classical villa like Cherrytrees. Could they be attempts to depict nearby Thirlestane, or Lochside - ? If so, we are getting a rare glimpse of Yetholm before the advent of photography. Or they may, of course, simply be works of whimsy . . . As discussed in the last blog the earliest known tenant of Yetholm Hall was the financially constrained William Beckwith, who lived there in the 1830s with his unmarried daughter Mary. Could she - perhaps, like many well-brought up ladies of the period, an amateur artist - have spent endless rainy winter afternoons filling in her time in remote Yetholm by decorating her father's residence-in-exile -? Thirlestane, Cherrytrees and Yetholm Hall are, though, all in some way linked through the Brack Boyd family. The Boyd family had owned Cherrytrees from c. 1800 and, as noted in the last blog, the first known owner of Yetholm Hall (c. 1850) was Adam Brack Boyd. George Walker had owned the estate of Thirlestane from at least the 1750s. When he was 65 in 1793 he married for a second time, to a much younger woman, and started a new family. Thereafter George Walker seems to have declined economically and there was squabbling among his children about their inheritance. In 1807 he sold the Thirlestane property to Adam Boyd and he and his family moved to Town Yetholm. The exact location is not known - might it have been on the site of Yetholm Hall? The shifting fortunes of these two families are clear, though the details are obscure. Might these mysterious images in some way reflect the twists of fate that entangled the Walkers and the Boyds - ? For most of the 19th-century the Brack-Boyds of Cherrytrees were prominent figures in the local community, Adam Boyd of Cherryrtrees died in 1831 aged 81. Adam Brack Boyd, his nephew, died in 1862, aged 73: John Brack Boyd died in 1906 aged 89. The estate then passed to Adam Brack Boyd, his nephew, born in Doddington in 1859, who preferred the life of a coffee planter in India to that of a Borders farmer. Adam seems to have had no involvement with the Cherrytrees estate. His marriage (which took place in India in 1888) was childless and ended in divorce, the scandalous details of which were revealed in the press: At their height, the Boyd family built a neat mausoleum in Yetholm kirkyard to commemorate their name and Adam Brack Boyd was the last of the Cherrytrees branch to be memorialised there, although he actually died in far off London. The mausoleum now lies abandoned and uncared for - see HERE. By the early 1920s the Cherrytrees estate was in the hands of Major Marshall.
Written by Elizabeth Heale, 2017. Yetholm Hall, hidden behind its big wall, on the outskirts of the village, turns out to have had many fascinating if slightly mysterious occupants. They were never in full public view as the High Street houses and families were, many of whose stories are still remembered and retold as part of Yetholm’s living past. The occupants of Yetholm Hall bring with them an air of the exotic, of international lives, important affairs, and distant places. It is pleasing and appropriate that its present incumbents continue this glamorous tradition. These notes represent mere fragments pieced together from various sources and far from complete. The bare recorded facts, alas, give us only tantalizing glimpses of the fascinating human stories. One of the most intriguing mysteries is the possibility that a version of the house existed in the late eighteenth century – more research needs to be done. The Building Historic Scotland’s Listed Buildings index describes Yetholm Hall as an ‘early 19th century, 2-storey, 3-bay symmetrical T-plan villa’. It is made of ‘whinstone rubble with ashlar sandstone dressings and S elevation’ with ‘giant pilasters flanking central bay and pilastered’. The Pevsner Architectural Guide to the Borders (2006) largely repeats this description. While there is agreement as to the early-nineteenth century date of the present building, a fragment of evidence exists that an earlier house may have occupied the same site, or at least bore the same name. In 1785-6, the old minister of Yetholm Kirk, the Reverend Joseph Leck, who had been Yetholm’s pastor for 54 years, retired. His old manse was considered unfit for the new incumbent, the Reverend William Blackie, and while a new manse was being built, the new minister is said to have stayed at Yetholm Hall. William Beckwith The next clue to the history of Yetholm Hall that we have been able to find is in 1837. In that year Pigot & Co.’s National Commercial Directory for the Whole of Scotland lists William Beckwith of Thurcroft as one of the gentlemen resident in Yetholm. We know that he was almost certainly living in Yetholm Hall because the 1841 census places him there with his daughter Mary and four servants. William Beckwith of Trimdon, Thurcroft and Easington in the County of Durham came from a long established family of county squires. He had been born in Easington, his mother’s estate, in 1772. The family’s main seat was at Thurcroft where their hall still survives. However, by the 1820s Beckwith had clearly got into financial difficulties. Thurcroft was mortgaged and Beckwith had retired to live modestly, first in Durham and, at some point in the 1830s to Yetholm Hall. It was here, in January 1841, that he was finally forced to cede Thurcroft to his creditors: 22 Jan 1841 - William Fretwell Hoyle of Rotherham, gentleman, steward of the manor of Laughton on-le-Morthen, appoints Abraham Story, John Ward, and Graville Leveson Gower Ward, all of Durham, gentlemen, to be his deputies to take surrender from William Beckwith of Yetholm Hall (in the county of Roxburgh), esquire, and from William Beckwith the younger, late of Trimdon House but now of Silksworth (in the county of Durham) a lieutenant colonel of infantry. William Beckwith the younger of Silksworth , mentioned here, was the eldest son of Yetholm Hall’s William Beckwith. William Jr. was a distinguished soldier. He fought at Waterloo, at the heroic battle for Quatre Bras, and in later life rose to be a General. Less sympathetically, he was responsible for the quelling of reform riots in Bristol in 1831. It is interesting to reflect that while one soldier with Border connections was supressing the reform riots in Bristol, another, Alexander Somerville who was brought up at Odhamstocks near Cockburnspath, was receiving 100 lashes of the cat-o’-nine tails in Birmingham for famously refusing to fire on reformist crowds. If the soldier Beckwith Jr. visited his father while he resided at Yetholm Hall, then the house has accommodated more than its fair share of military heroes. Since there is general agreement among architectural historians that Yetholm Hall in its present state was built in the early nineteenth century, it is at least possible that William Beckwith was responsible for the design and building of the present house. He may thus have provided himself with a suitably gentlemanly retreat, less costly and ostentatious than Thurcroft Hall, when he came to live here sometime in the 1830s. While in residence at Yetholm Hall, there is some evidence that William Beckwith took an active interest in gentlemanly social activity in the area. A report in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History 1841 records that Beckwith of Yetholm Hall submitted specimens to the Tweedside Physical and Antiquarian Society which met in the apartments of the Duke of Roxburgh. No clue is given as to what these specimens were. His interest in Natural Hisotry was shared by the Reverend John Baird at the manse in Kirk Yetholm, a founder member of Berwickshire Naturalists Club in 1831. One hopes they have many convivial evenings at Yetholm Hall or the Baird’s refurbished manse. Beckwith died at Yetholm Hall on December 31st 1848, aged 75. One of his daughters, Mary, also lived at Yetholm Hall. She seems to have been allocated the task of looking after her ageing father and running his household – a respectable but perhaps dreary fate. She was 42 at the time of his death. She died, no longer at Yetholm Hall but still unmarried, in 1865. From 1848 to 1893 For much of the second half of the nineteenth century Yetholm Hall seems to have had a series of owners and occupants. According to the Ordinance Survey ‘Namebook’, written before 1859, the owner of the Hall by that time was Adam Brack Boyd Esq. who also owned Thirlestane as well as Cherrytrees, where he actually lived. His tenant at Yetholm Hall was J. Oliver Esq. The house was described as ‘a plain but neat dwelling House of freestone at the northern extremity of Town Yetholm enclosed in a small shrubbery and vegetable garden.’ The authorities for this information are John Baird, A. Brack Boyd and J. Oliver. The 1861 census, taken in April of that year, records only a household of servants, a groom, a cook and a domestic servant, Jane Cranston who is 18 years old and unmarried. There is also a ‘daughter’, Grace C. Waitte, 2 years old and born, very exotically, in Chile, South America. This Grace turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of the servant, Jane Cranston - the initial C. in the child’s name stands for Cranston. Her rather pathetic life can be traced, far from home and family, in English censuses. In 1871, at the age of 12, she is a boarder with a family in Croydon – perhaps at school, possibly paid for by the mysterious father? She is next found as a 22 year old teacher at a boarding school in Derbyshire (shades of Jane Eyre!). All trace of her ends there. Who was the Waitte whose surname she bears? What was Jane, the unmarried servant, who was born in Kelso, doing in Chile at the age of 16 when her daughter was born? And who is the missing tenant of Yetholm Hall, the head of this household of servants? It is all a rather intriguing mystery. By July 1861, this exotic household had moved on and Yetholm Hall was advertised in the Kelso Chronicle (5th July) as available for let, furnished. Applications to be directed to Mr Swan, Kelso. This was Robert Swan Esq., a Writer in Kelso, and an agent for the Wauchopes. In 1866, the Southern Counties Register (a local directory), records that the Hall was the property of Andrew Wauchope Esq. (father of the Major-General), and that it was occupied by the Reverend John Coventry. John Coventry was called to be minister of Yetholm Free Church (later St James) in 1862. Soon after his arrival the Free Church manse, Shirrafield, was considered ‘incommodious and antiquated’ and funds were raised to build a beautiful new manse designed, according to Historic Scotland, ‘in the style of the Scottish architect James Campbell Walker.’ This was Copsewood at the other, Townfoot, end of Town Yetholm. Building began in 1863 and, presumably, until it was finished, Yetholm Hall was rented as a suitable temporary manse. As we have seen, Yetholm Hall may have already served as a manse once before, since the Reverend William Blackie is said to have stayed there while the manse in Kirk Yetholm was being built in 1785-6. If the Reverend John Coventry did not move in to Copsewood till 1866 as the Southern Counties Register states, he did not enjoy his new house for long, because he left in 1869 to take up a charge at Gibralter. In 1874-5, the Yetholm Valuation Rolls tell us that the tenant of Yetholm Hall was now a James Dods, a medical doctor. In September 1878 an advertisement in The Scotsman described Yetholm Hall as available to be let furnished, with or without attendant. Those interested were to apply to Miss Young (presumably the housekeeper) at the house. By 1881, the occupant according to census returns and the Valuation Rolls was James Wilson, sometimes described as a carrier and sometimes as a ‘farmer of 8 acres’, with his family, a wife, an aged father, two children and a nephew. James Wilson, now a widower, is still recorded on the Valuation Rolls for 1894-5, but this presents a puzzle, because by then it seems likely that the Wauchopes were using the house when they stayed at Yetholm. The Wauchopes and Yetholm Hall. The land on which Yetholm Hall was built would certainly have been part of the Town Yetholm estate that the Wauchopes bought in 1643. They may have feued the land, or more likely, directly leased it to various tenants. As we saw, Adam Brack Boyd is described by the writer of the Ordinance Survey ‘Namebook’, on good local authority, as the ‘owner’ in the late 1850s. It is possible that this means he was the holder of a lease from the Wauchopes and was sub-letting to J. Oliver. On the other hand, the land and house may have been sold to Brack Boyd or his predecessor Beckwith and then bought back by the Wauchopes later in the nineteenth century. We know that the Wauchope lairds in the early nineteenth century did not use the Hall when they stayed at Yetholm, because a letter survives from Mr Swan, the Wauchope agent in Kelso, to James Dodds of Town Yetholm. In the letter, dated 25 Feb 1848, Mr Swan makes clear that the current Wauchope laird, Andrew Wauchope, the Major-General’s father, has been in the habit of keeping a room reserved for his use at the Dodds’s farmhouse in the High Street. This arrangement is now to be halted. As Mr Wauchope ‘has not only the Inn at Yetholm to go to when visiting his estates in Roxburghshire but also a large house for his Gamekeeper into which he can stow away his fishing rods and other traps, he desires me to intimate to you. . . that he would not require your room any longer, and the first time I am at Yetholm he authorized me to get the door opened and the room cleared of all his property, and handed over to George Walker his Gamekeeper.’ The ‘large house for his Gamekeeper’ could not be Yetholm Hall as at this time the Hall was still occupied by William Beckwith. The Wauchopes are certainly named as the landowners for Yetholm Hall from 1866 onwards. Although William Baird in his Life of General Wauchope (1901) says that, as a child, he spent short summer visits in Yetholm, there is no evidence of the Wauchopes staying at Yetholm Hall until 1893. In that year, Colonel Andrew Gilbert Wauchope, having recently inherited the family estates, married his second wife, Jean Muir, daughter of Sir William Muir, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh University. The papers announced that the newly-wedded couple were to spend their honeymoon at Yetholm. During their stay, Colonel Wauchope addressed a dinner put on by the Shepherds’ Show committee, and was presented with a diamond brooch and watch chain by the feuers of Yetholm. It seems probable that they stayed at Yetholm Hall, although, as we have seen, the Valuation Rolls for 1894-5 name James Wilson, retired carter, as the occupant. Perhaps James Wilson vacated it during the honeymoon holiday. In the following years it is clear that Colonel Wauchope took a far greater interest in Yetholm than his immediate predecessors and a number of visits are recorded. In 1896 a dinner and address were given in his honour by Yetholm’s great and good to thank him for donating £300 to improving Yetholm’s rudimentary water and drainage system. In October 1898 Colonel Wauchope came to stay at Yetholm on his return from the victory at Omdurman in which he had played a part and for which he was promoted to the rank of Major-General. On this occasion Lord Wolsely, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, drove over from Ford Castle to visit Wauchope at Yetholm Hall and to see the gypsies in Kirk Yetholm. Returning to Yetholm Hall in November of the same year, the Major-General was dined by the locals in the Town Hall (now the Youth Hall) and presented with an expensive pair of field glasses. Wauchope returned the favour by inveighing against the foolish notion of old age pensions at a packed meeting in the Town Hall, arguing that ‘those who were of thrifty habits would have to pay for those who were of the opposite persuasion.’ It was during his November stay at Yetholm Hall that he was visited by no less a figure than Lord Kitchener himself. In 1900, after the death of the Major-General at the Battle of Magersfontein on the 11th December 1899, his widow, Jean Wauchope, came to live at Yetholm Hall. She played the role of benefactor and grande dame in the village and was a figure of considerable importance, driving around the village in her pony and trap. She purchased the Wauchope Hall when it ceased to be used by the Border View United Free church in 1919, and handed it over as a free gift to the villagers. For a number of years she also provided a Good Templars’ Hall (Temperance) Hall for the villagers. Another benefaction was the regular treats for the children of the School. These usually consisted of tea and cakes, followed by a programme of songs and recitations, occasionally with the addition of ‘Father Christmas with his toys.’ Such events took place at the School throughout the early twentieth century up to the 1930s. The last such occasion seems to have been in September 1934 when the children were invited to tea at ‘The Hall’ – was this the Wauchope Hall, or perhaps, Yetholm Hall? Jean Wauchope died at Niddrie in August 1942. Recent History The Valuation Rolls seem to indicate that it remained in the hands of the Wauchope estate but unoccupied until about 1960. In the 1960s the Valuation Rolls name a couple of tenants, a Clifford Cross and a Derek Cameron, but in 1970 it finally left Wauchope ownership and became the property of George Beveridge, former landlord of the Plough Hotel, becoming, by 1974, the ‘Hall Guest House’ under the proprietorship of Mrs Jane Beveridge. Finally, by 1985 Yetholm Hall had passed to the Rustads and the rest, as they say, is history. Alterations to Yetholm Hall
These two nineteenth/early-twentieth century postcards show Yetholm Hall on the right. In the colourised image there is no back extension (staircase) extending northwards to the boundary wall from the main house, and the stables appear very much smaller. Do the two views record changes made to the Hall in the 1890s when the Wauchopes took up residence? [Click on images to expand]
The photograph at the top of the page shows Grafton House in Town Yetholm - a recent photograph of the same building can be seen above left. The photographer then seems to have turned round and taken two images of the now-demolished Ivy Cottage: The two images can be crudely joined to given an impression of the wider scene (below - click on the image to see a larger version). The buildings on the right stood behind Tibbie Herbert's cottage. Robert Herbert, Tibbies father, was a mason and ran his own business. He died in 1941 and his business was taken over by Garnet Tice, who at that date lived in Ivy Cottage. The buildings on the right may have been used by Robert as a workshop. The photographer also took an image from much the same spot, looking towards the Morebattle Road. Rose Cottage, on the right, is at this date 'Rose Cafe' and can been seen sporting a traditional style of thatch, rather than the Olde Englishe variety which adorns the house today. Tibbie Herbert's thatched cottage can just be glimpsed on the left. The photographer also went across to Kirk Yetholm, although the only image taken there can be seen below. It is rather over-exposed, but it shows the cottage which once stood immediately outside the Kirk gates. All the other cottages in this row were in a derelict state at this date, largely being utilised as garage space, but this one is relatively spruce, with new windows in the roof: ![]() Unfortunatley, probably soon after the photograph above was taken, this cottage too, like Tibbie Herbert's, was burned to the ground and then demolished. The site (left) is now a rough car park for church goers and others to use. Most of the rest of the row of cottages still stand, but are as derelict as they were in the 1950s. Our blog-post in August 2022 looked at some of the bric-a-brac produced to sell to visitors to Yetholm in the late 19th and early 20th century - click HERE. We have recently been given, by the family of Tom Tokeley, a couple of similar items, shown above. Each of them is tiny, approximately an inch high and features a mock coat-of-arms, with motto. In Yetholm's case the motto reads 'Un Pour To Us Tous Pour Un[?]' - Latin? Old Scots? Romany? We have put these precious relics on display in the cabinet in the Heritage Centre, which has now re-opened for the 2024 Summer Season. Many thanks to the Tokely family for these gifts.
|
Archives
July 2024
|