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]
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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.
The log books of Yetholm School make fascinating reading. YHS has copies starting in around 1900. Most of the entries relate to the progress - or otherwise - of reading, writing and 'rithmatic in the village. Inspectors regularly visited and their reports are carefully transcribed. Attendance is noted. It is striking how often pupils numbers dropped because the children decided to take time off to watch the fox hounds, or attend a ploughing match at Cherrytrees or a farm displenishing. There are also frequent references to the school being closed because of infections - chickenpox, impetigo, whooping cough and so on; on occasion the school was closed for months. Even though there was no National Health Service, medical officers frequently visited and it is clear that the school was the main contact point between health authorities and the local population. Most of the entries are fairly business-like, but the entry shown above, from 1902, is unusually irritable. The teacher must have been having a bad day. It is interesting that 'Royal' Kirk Yetholm is perceived as the scruffy end of the village. One suspects this may have been an accurate observation (at the time) - ? A few years later parents complained that their children were having to sit next to pupils with lice ('pediculi corporis'): Admittedly, in this case, no aspersions are cast against Kirk Yetholm and, who knows, the dirty children may well have come from Town Yetholm - ? Anyone who has done family history research into ancestors from Yetholm in the late 19th and early 20th century will recognise the unusually angular handwriting of these entries, as George Mather, the head-teacher, who wrote the log books, was also the inspector of the poor and registrar of the village - all death certificates, for example, were transcribed by him. Some of the log book entries will be looked at in subsequent blogposts, but the rest of this one will be devoted to 'Geordie' Mather - who exactly was he? George Mather was baptised in Morebattle in May 1865. His father, John, was a coachman, and subsequent censuses show the family living in Kelso. It was presumably there that George received his education. The 1871 census decsribes him, aged 16, as a 'pupil teacher'. Where he subsequently trained is unclear, but in August 1887 he was appointed head teacher of Yetholm School. He is probably to be seen below, in a school photo taken soon after his arrival: George married Susan Dick in Ednam in 1889 - and at some point grew a dapper mustache, which features in all subsequent photographs. Like Andrew Richardson Blythe he was obviously a lad from a relatively humble background who, through good fortune and native ability, was able to rise through the social and financial ranks of Border's society. His income must have been supplemented by his role as registrar and newspaper reports show him frequently being appointed to greet visiting dignitaries to the village with a few well-chosed words of welcome. He played in very prominent role in organising the 1898 gipsy coronation, which brought Yetholm world-wide fame. The speech, in Romani, which the new king read from his throne was written by him - though one suspects King Charles II was never a very good school pupil and the speech was probably delivered rather badly. In the large photograph which was taken of the participants of the coronation he (left, below) and Dr Rodgers (right) are shown lounging on the grass in front of the other participants. It is interesting that these two prominent middle-class figures are dressed in their best suits, while everyone else is standing in their fancy dress costumes. George and Susan's marriage was childless, though financially they did well - by the end of his life they were living in Elmbank, the large house on the Morebattle Road, next to the even grander Romany House, which is where Dr Rodgers lived. Clearly this was the posh end of the village - about as far removed from down-at-heels Kirk Yetholm a it was possible to be! The school log books give the impression of a very diligent and devoted teacher, who did his best for his pupils. He seems to have been respected and well-liked. Tragically, though, he seems to have had heart problems and in June 1921 he was forced to resign. He cannot have been able to enjoy life in Elmbank for long. His last entries in the log book are shown below, after which the angular handwriting disappears (click to expand the image): George Mather died in an Edinburgh nursing home on the 28th May 1922, aged 56. Despite having worked in Yetholm for over thirty years he was not buried in the village - presumably his grave is somewhere in Edinburgh. His wife died, in Jedburgh district, in 1959 aged 88.
YHS has several school photographs in which he features. The one below must have been taken circa 1920, almost at the end of his time in the village. Douglas Turnbull, who died recently, has identified some of the children and his notes can also be seen. Interestingly, the child on the left of the middle-row is John Gray, the very eminent scholar and subject of last month's blog, who lived in Kirk Yetholm. His daughter says that he was sent home for bad behaviour on his first day at School! However, as noted, he went on to achieve academic excellence - proof that even ramshackle Kirk Yetholm wasn't as hopeless as it may have appeared, on occasion, to the village headmaster. This year Shrove Tuesday falls on Tuesday 13th February. As discussed in two earlier blogs this day would have been an eventful one in Yetholm - the date on which the Fastern's E'en games were held; a tradition which must have dated back to medieval times, surviving the abolition of such festivals from the ecclesiatical calendar at the establishment of Presbyterian worship in 1688. The first blog can be found HERE and the second HERE. This seems an appropriate moment to round off the series with a look at a very exuberant poem about the Yetholm Fastern's E'en games, the first verses of which are shown above. First published in the Kelso Chronicle, the YHS archives contain a carefully cut-out copy of the poem, although the author has remained a mystery until recently. The verses are signed 'Gangrel Body' and dated February 20th 1943. Fortunately a few years ago Jean Reynolds gave to the Society a copy of her father's poems and - lo and behold! - there is the mysterious poem. 'Gangrel Body' (ie a ragged tramp) was, it turns out, none other than the Rev. Prof. John Gray, one of the most eminent academics that Yetholm has produced. A scan of the full poem, with a brief biographical note at the end, can be found by clicking HERE. The biographical note which we have included is somewhat mistaken in saying that John was born in 1913 in Yetholm. In fact he was born in Roxburgh Street, Kelso, the son of James Gray, a master tailor, who served his apprenticeship at Humes. James was called up in 1914 and while he was away in France his wife, with baby son, decided to move to Kirk Yetholm. At the end of the war he returned and joined his wife (and unfamiliar son), who were living in Cross Keys House in Kirk Yetholm. He obviously liked it, because that's where he remained for the rest of his career, earning a living by making Sunday suits for the many shepherds that there once were in the area. Jean says her grandfather would walk to farms to take measurements and when the job was done the finished article was wrapped in brown paper and sent out to the grateful client. Her father was once dispatched with one of these parcels - at the tender age of 7 - up the Halterburn valley and over the hills to the farm steading at Trowupburn in Northumberland! James Gray was, according to Jean, a somewhat stern figure, but he clearly joined in festive activities such as the Fastern's E'en games. He was a keen bagpipe player and while serving in France (as a tailor - which perhaps helps explain how he survived the bloodshed) he made his own set of bagpipes from bits of cloth, which have remained in the family. His grandson Walter Gray, chairman of the Scottish Piobaireachd Society, once owned them and they are now played by great-grandson Will. In a newspaper extract quoted in one of the earlier blogs it mentions that in 1922 the Fastern's E'en festivities began in the early morning when 'the village was aroused by the martial strains of Johnnie Cope played by piper Gray'. Whether everyone in the village welcomed being awakened in that way is open to question! As there is only one family called Gray living in Yetholm in the 1921 census it is safe to assume that the 'piper Gray' mentioned here must be James Gray, the tailor from Kirk Yetholm. The poem by 'Gangrel Body' is full of vivid pen-portraits of the characters who thronged to the games on the haugh. As discussed in one of the earlier blogs, the games seem to have ended in the late-1920s so, although written in 1943, the poem must be describing events in the 1920s. In fact one of the character's is the author's own father, the piper 'Jeems' Gray: In retirement James Gray and his wife moved to Cheviot Villa, in the Crescent, Town Yetholm. He died there in 1953 aged 69. John Gray worked in university departments in both the UK and abroad, but continued to visit Yetholm throughout his life. In 1943, when he appears to have written this poem, he was recently married and a minister at Kilmory on Arran, having returned from Palestine via South Africa on a Norwegian freighter (on which vessel he learned to speak Norwegian - one of many languages, both ancient and modern, in which he was fluent). His brother Derek was less fortunate, being a prisoner of the Japanese in Sumatra.
While ministering on Arran, John Gray worked on his PhD thesis, the subject of which was the recently discovered texts written on clay tablets in the extinct language of Ugartic from around 1,500 BC. Writing a poem in Border's dialect - and dreaming of his childhood days in Kirk Yetholm - may have been a way of turning his mind from the knotty problems of translation and the anxieties, both personal and communal, of a world at war. John Gray's final academic work was a commentary on the Book of Job, one of the most difficult books in the Old Testament to translate. His son Ian has recently extracted and published his father's translation of the basic text from the dense web of scholarship that supports it. Alongside the biblical text, Ian has included Job in a Cheviot Plaid, a lively poetic paraphrase of the Book of Job written in Borders dialect. Clearly the spirit which inspired 'Gangrel Body' when he was writing in 1943 was still active at the end of his life while working on his scholarly commentary. A copy of this book has been generously donated to the YHS archive, should anyone fancy having a dip into it. 2024 has begun quietly in Yetholm (yet again!), but we live in very troubled times. Might World War Three have already begun without anyone noticing? The picture above can be found in the YHS archives. We know little about it, apart from the fact that it shows, from left to right, 'Dora Young; Mrs Turnbull; Mary Wilson (d of Mr McAllister); Mrs India Russell'. The date is unknown, but one suspects it was taken in the early 1960s. It could be a festive occasion, but the posters pinned to the wooden rail tell a different story. Here is a clearer example: Clearly what we are looking at is a Civil Defence excercise. The slogan 'Civil Defence is Common Sense' seems to have been coined in the late '50s and continued in use into the early 1960s, as can be seen on this post-mark from 1962: There was a nationwide campaign at this date to create a volunteer 'Fourth Arm', in addition to the traditional Navy, Army and Airforce - specifically in order to deal with the chaos of a nuclear war. This Fourth Arm had five sections: 'What about the millions of survivors?' asks the poster. Presumambly the ladies on Town Yetholm green were members of the Welfare section, whose job was to bring care and comfort 'to some millions of evacuees'. A basket of bread rolls can be seen, along with hot-water urns, to provide the bedraggled survivors from Newcastle or Edinburgh with a welcome cup of tea. The full (fascinating) poster from which the above extract is taken can bee seen by clicking HERE.
Although we don't know the exact date of our photograph, we know of other similar training events in the village. The cutting below is from the Berwick Advertiser of 15th May 1958. The ladies of the village, under the leadership of Mrs Hogarth, seem to have worked very hard - 'The meal was most enjoyable and very well cooked and all present voted the meal excellent'. It is not known when the Yetholm section of the Civil Defence Corps was stood down - or perhaps faded away. Perhaps it may need to be revived in the not-too-distant future? We have recently been given a copy of Seymour Haugh's book Sixty Years Strong; A History of the Borders Search and Rescue Unit 1963-2003. As the book makes clear this search and rescue unit has its origins in Yetholm, - in particular in the work of the Yetholm Scouts and their leader Jack Robb of Blunty's Mill. There are records of Scouts in Yetholm in the 1930s, but the group seems to have disbanded at some point. However in the late 1950s Scouts - and then Cubs - reappeared again: Jack Robb was behind the plan to use the Rover Scouts as the nucleus of a Mountain Rescue Unit. The germ of the idea appears to have been locally famous death in a snowstorm in north Northumberland of two shepherds in a snowstorm in November 1962 - see HERE. One of the shepherds was buried in the new graveyard in Town Yetholm - in fact, the first interment there. Seymour Haugh's book transcribes an entry by Jack in the log book of the First Yetholm (Cheviot) Rover Scout Crew, dated 22nd November 1963: For the last few weeks, for lack of permanent Den, we have been holding our meetings in Gibson's bungalow, but now, through the generosity of W.T.Mackinnon, Esq., we have been granted the use of the Stable Cottage at the Hall. This has given us a terrific boost and we feel that at last we are forging ahead in the right direction. In a remarkably short time we have furnished the Den and Meetings are held regularly every Tuesday evening. A Hill Rescue Squad has been formed and already two cross country hikes have been undertaken with the idea of familiarising outselves with the local hill country ... At present the Crew numbers seven (and two terriers), but what we lack in size we make up for in keeness, and I feel that we have the nucleus of a first class Crew - Second to none in the Borders. Jack Robb R.S.L This initial enthusiasm didn't wane. Jack and the lads from Yetholm developed into a very active and experienced rescue group, which is still going today, although no longer based in Yetholm (and increasingly women were involved too!). The subsequent story is well told in Mr Haugh's book, which contains many photographs of the group in action. Here are a couple of news items item from 1967 and 1973: Jill Mooney, Jack's daughter, has given us a collection of images of the group to digitise and add to our collection. Many of the faces in these pictures will be familiar to people from Yetholm: Unfortunately, although the Mountain Rescue Team remained active for many years, the Yetholm Scout group itself ceased to function in about 1966. Jack Robb contributed an article to the first edition of The Yett in 1970 regretting its demise: Note: If you would like to look at a book in the YHS library details can be found HERE.
Yetholm History Society recently acquired the glass slide image shown above. It is inscribed in one corner 'Yetholm' - and the cottage is certainly similar to many that were once found in the village and all across the Borders and Northumberland. But, if it is from Yetholm, which cottage is it? So far, the best guess, is that it shows an earlier incarnation of Wynstae Cottage, which stands on its own, opposite the gates of the kirk. Today this building is whitewashed, with a porch, modern windows and a slate roof - see the images below. Clearly the cottage has changed a lot - if this guess is correct - but the same could be said for most of the buildings in Yetholm. Probably the image on the slide was taken in the first decade of the 20th-century. Several postcard photographs of this area in Kirk Yetholm were taken at this date, but most were shot from outside the cottage's front door, looking towards the Border Hotel, with the photographers back to the cottage in question. The photographers were keen to capture the row of picturesque (but increasingly dilapidated) thatched cottages on the other side of the road - see image below, which appeared in an album of collotype photographs published by Gibson of Coldstream. This much photographed row of cottages looked out onto a plot of allotment land, the retaining wall of which can be seen on the right. Today the shells of these cottages are still standing, as is the area of allotment land. The earth behind this wall stands a couple of feet above the level of the roadway and Wynstae Cottage is built into it. The cottage shown in the glass slide is similarly wedged into the banked earth and it seems likely that the retaining wall shown in the slide is the same as that shown in Gibson's collotype.
The cottage shown in the glass slide looks as if it may once have been longer - the edge of the thatch has perhaps been torn away at some point. Also note that it has two chimneys - one centrally placed and the other at the far end. Wynstae cottage today has a chimney at either end. However, the chimney at the far end of the glass slide image looks very similar to the chimney that can be found in the same position today. It is interesting, too, that today's cottage has retained what looks like one of its original windows, to the right of the door - this may be a survival from the earlier version of the cottage. The first detailed Ordnance Survey map of Kirk Yetholm (1859) shows that a building was standing was on the site at that date. Has anyone got a better identification for the mysterious glass slide...? Or has anyone got other early images of Wynstae Cottage that would help to firm up this hypothesis? As already mentioned, most photographs of this area were taken looking in the opposite direction. One of the few we have in which Wynstae Cottage can be glimpsed, albeit distantly, is shown below. Judging by the clothes of the men in the foreground it was taken in the 1930s and it looks as if, by this date, the cottage has been modernised to something approaching its appearance today - the pitch of the roof is shallower than in the glass slide image, appropriate for a building that has been tiled. Several of the cottages on the other side of the street have been similarly renovated, with tile roofs, in an attempt to drag them into the twentieth century. Sadly, that plan failed and today the ruined buildings are an eyesore. Only Wynstae Cottage is still lived in. The weather was foul, but YHS had a relatively dry pitch for our stall at the Yetholm Shepherds Show on Saturday 7th October. As well as selling books and advertising our events, we had a 'What's that Thing?' competition in which visitors had to identify varoius moderately enigmatic objects in our collection. Prize winners to be contacted shortly. One of the posters which we used is shown below.
St Ethelreda, c. 636 – 23 June 679 AD, (also sometimes Etheldreda or Æthelthryth or Æðelþryð or Æþelðryþe – or, more usually, just plain Audrey) was an East Anglian princess, whose main claim to sanctity was that, although married twice, she was determined to remain a virgin and to live as a nun. Her second marriage was to Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria. Ecgfrith initially agreed Ethelreda should continue to remain a virgin, but about 672 he appealed to Bishop Wilfrid for the enforcement of his marital rights as against Ethelreda's religious vocation. The bishop succeeded at first in persuading the king to consent that Etheldreda should live for some time in peace as a sister of the Coldingham nunnery, founded by his aunt, Æbbe of Coldingham. Eventually, in light of the danger of being forcibly carried off by the king, Ethelreda fled back to the Isle of Ely with two nuns as companions. There she founded a monastery and lived the usual austere life (rough clothes, infrequent bathing etc). She died of a neck tumour, said to a punishment for her former love of fancy clothes and jewels while a young princess. After death her body remained uncorrupted and many people visited her shrine for healing, particularly if they suffered from illnesses of the neck. There are few churches dedicated to St Ethelreda and those that are located in the south of England. Most famously Ely Cathedral is devoted to her and it was there that her shrine was located until the reformation. The drawing above shows a capital in Ely Cathedral which Illustrates a miraculous incident which took place when Ethelreda fled from Northumbria. Worn out and weary she lay down to rest. She stuck her staff in the ground and when she awoke the staff had turned in a great tree, providing her with shelter while she rested. Despite the paucity of dedications to her in the north there are tantalising references to a chapel dedicated to her in the Halterburn valley, near Yetholm. It is generally assumed that this chapel was associated with the monastic grange of Kelso Abbey which was located along the Halterburn, in what was then generally recognised as England. No remains are now visible, but the first Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1859) indicated that is stood close to where a sike flowed into the main burn - see arrow on map below. Several years ago Tom Broad of YHS organised a field survey to try and locate this mysterious chapel – but with no success. More recently Tillvas (the Till Valley Archaeological Society), having found medieval pottery in a test trench close to the site indicated on the 1859 map, have organised a dig to try and find out what was going on there – see photograph below, the excavations are to the right of white tent - the location is also marked on the map above with a star. The dig took place in mid September and the project included a visit to the site by children from Yetholm Primary School and an open day for general visitors on the final Saturday; there was also a display of finds in the YHS Heritage Centre in Town Yetholm. A substantial amount of medieval pottery was found, also a (shroud?) pin, a metal arrowhead and a 14th c. silver coin. See photograph below. Apart from these portable, scattered medieval objects there was clear evidence of substantial building work in the area. See photographs below. Was this the chapel? Nothing as fine and as obviously ecclesiastical as the carved to stone capital at the head of this blog post was found! May it have been a mill? The finds are tantalisingly enigmatic. More work is clearly (hopefully?) needed.
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