YHS archives contains a copy of the photograph shown above. It was clearly taken at the foot of Dow Brae - the slope of the road as it rises onto the bridge over the Bowmont can be seen in the background. Unfortunately we do not know the photograph's date or the names of men who are its subject. At a guess, it seems likely to have been taken around 1910, but the names of the four gadgies are probably irrecoverable, which is a great pity as the image is evocative of a lost world.
   Given the anonymity of the men - and because it is hard to find another place to use this amusing anecdote - we attach a newspaper cutting from the Jedburgh Gazette, 21st March 1908. Despite the title, it is not about 'Gender Identity', but the sometimes-mysterious world of carts in Yetholm. Who knows , maybe the droll Jacob Anderson may be one of the men in the photograph ...

The photograph shown above is one of several enigmatic images in the YHS archive. Where is it? Who does it show? When was it taken?

Someone has cellotaped a label on the cardboard mount which reads (in biro): ‘Duncan Haugh Mill in the 1920s’. The location suggested here is certainly correct – the current building (see photograph below) is similarly four-square, with a porch, and with a single-storey ancillary building lying to the left. The harling has now gone, the windows changed and the porch reconfigured, but the basic structure is the same.

The date suggested on the cellotaped label must, however, be wrong. The style of the clothes of the people in the centre suggests that somewhere between 1880 and 1900 would be a better guess. In that case, it seems like that the individuals who are so carefully posed behind the group of pigs(!) are members of the Gowanlock family.

The 1861 census shows that at that date the tenant at Duncanhaugh was John Gowanlock, 38 - 'Miller & Farmer of 60 acres, employing 3 men and woman'. He was living with his wife Margaret, a couple of years older, and his son James, aged 8. Margaret's maiden-surname was Glass and her uncle, Thomas, was the tenant at Hayhope Farm, just a few hundred yards on the other side of the Bowmont Water. The three Gowanlocks were still there in 1881, but by that date James, aged 28, was married to Janet, 29, and the young couple had three children -  Eliza, aged 4, George 2, and John, who was less than a year old. This three generational household was not to last very much longer. Grandmother Margaret died in October 1883 and grandfather John died a couple of months later in December, both were in their early 60s.

Correlating this information with the people shown in the photograph would suggest that it was taken in around 1882, shortly before the deaths of John and Margaret. Our tentative identification is that James is the man holding the horse; the seated family group would then be, from left to right, John, with grandson George standing between his legs (aged about 4), then his wife Margaret, with grandson John on her lap (aged about 2), then daughter Eliza standing (aged about 6), then James's wife Janet. The (teenage?) girl standing on the far right may be a servant or a member of the family who was visiting at the time.

James and Janet went on to have three more children, all daughters - Margaret Glass (b. 1883), Janet (b.1885) and Annie Glass (b. 1888). The fact that none of these girls is in the photograph helps confirm that it must have been taken in circa 1882.

The presence of pigs in the foreground is clearly deliberate - they clearly wanted these animals to be recorded (along with the horse). It looks like some tasty food has been scattered on the ground to get them into position, with the hens joining in! Why would the Gowanlock's want this? Newspapers of the time suggest both father and son were proud farmers and entered a variety of animals in local shows, often winning a prize. James won prizes for his pigs on several occassions. The newspaper cutting shown below is from the Newcastle Courant, 10th August 1883 and shows that he won (or was commended?) at Berwick Show for his Berkshire sow 'Bowmont Lassie'. This is shortly before his parents died and at around the time this photograph was taken. Might 'Bowmont Lassie' be one of the portly pigs in the foreground???

                                                           The Gowanlocks - Part Two
John Gowanlock was the son of James Gowanlock (born 1791, Southdean) and his wife Ann Shiel (born 1798, Oxnam). In the 1851 census it is James, his father, who is the tenant at Duncanhaugh Mill Farm. John obviously took over the tenancy at Duncanhaugh after his father left the farm in 1860 (see below).

James and Ann Shiel had several other children. Their eldest son, Robert (born 1817, Hownam), was later to farm Dean Mill/Primside Dyke farms, a mile down the road from Duncanhaugh Mill, in Morebattle parish. Both of these farms have now completely disappeared.

Another son, James (born 1820, Morebattle), married Helen Turnbull and was to become a baker (also grocer & spirit dealer) in Town Yetholm.

There were also another three brothers and three sisters.

The three brothers who remained in the Yetholm area - Robert, James and John - seem to have been ambitious and upwardly mobile. However their lives had a fair share of turmoil and tragedy. In 1851 Robert's stackyard was destroyed by fire:

In 1860 James died in an horrific accident - with grim irony, given the family's later pride in 'Bowmont Lassie' - this was caused, as it were, by a pig:

In the 1861 census James Gowanlock senior (aged 70, a widower) is listed as a grocer and spirit dealer in Town Yetholm. He seems to have stepped in to look after his son's business after this horrible tragedy. It is not clear when James senior died - probably not long after the census - as in 1863 his daughter-in-law Helen Turnbull is declared bankrupt. The property in which the business was housed  is put up for auction in 1865/66.

None of the brothers was very long-lived. Robert died in 1869 aged only 52. John, as we have seen, died in 1883 aged 61. The younger generation was equally unfortunate. Less than ten years after the photograph of the family was taken in a sunny Duncanhaugh farmyard, daughter-in-law Janet was to die aged just 39 (in 1891), while her husband James was to die in 1904, aged just 52.

The gravestone for James and Janet Gowanlock, in Yetholm kirkyard, which also memorialises two of the three children who appear with them in the photograph at the head of this blog-post, is shown below: