Small Village - Big(ish) Ambitions

Unveiling the new monument: Gavin Horsburgh ( Honorary Provost Kelso Community Council), Neil Rawlins ( Chair, KHS ), Duke of Roxburghe and Finn McCallum.

Work is ongoing at the Mission Hall, so hopefully everything will be ready for the grand opening  of 'Yetholm Heritage Centre' on the 21st May. SBC have promised us a couple of signs will be installed shortly on nearby roads to point visitors in the right direction - important, given that our building is on a rather obscure corner of the village. Many thanks to councillor Euan Robson who has been very active on our behalf. And as some of you will also have seen, if you happen to have walked past, Leslie Richardson and Alan Kerr have been hard at work installing a brand new gate. Thanks to them too.

In the mean time ... you may be interested in paying a visit to the Kelso Abbey Orchard (near the Mayfield Garden Centre), if you haven't already been. This is a project initiated by our friends at Kelso Heritage Society, who believe that there may have been apple trees tended by monks within the Abbey Gardens when the Abbey was active.  They have a map of the area from 1823 which shows an orchard on the site at that time. In late 2019 the Orchard was planted with 16 local varieties of apple tree.  Children from local schools assisted with the planting.

Admittedly, at this time of year the apple trees are not going to be showing much life, but on 6th February the Duke of Roxburghe unveiled a splendid new commemorative stone on the site, the details of which can't be seen in full detail in the photograph of the event shown above. The new stone has a Yetholm connection, as it was carved by village-based monumental mason Finn MacCallum (on right in the photo above). Commenting on his inspiration for the design on the stone Finn said:

   “In the autumn of 2019 while taking part in the archaeological excavations, up to my eyes in a pit just over there, digging around, covered in mud and completely in my element I came up with the idea of donating a wee stone for the new orchard.
   Initially, I had planned to create something fairly small scale, maybe donating a weeks' worth of carving at most whilst taking a back seat role on any design and organisation. Then I decided that since this is my hometown, I was going to develop the idea further and create something I can be proud of.  

The stone depicts a monk gathering apples from a tree in the abbey garden on its south side and on its north you’ll see the two kings David I and Malcolm IV enthroned within the capitalised letter M, this was borrowed from the 1159 century Kelso Charter which confirmed the surrounding lands of Kelso to the Abbey.

In the spirit of friendly rivalry with Kelso maybe we should get Finn to sculpt an even bigger stone for Yetholm's Heritage Centre ...? Perhaps it could feature some imagery related to the famous Bronze Age 'Yetholm Shields'? We have, incidentally, requested a short loan from SBC Museum Service of the Bronze Age spearhead which was found along with the shields in the 19th century. The spearhead disappeared, but was re-found by John Wylie and Catherine Ross, current owners of Thirlestane. Our request is a bit of a long-shot - but worth a try. John and Catherine have, however, given to YHS the storage jar shown below, so we may have to make do with that instead at our grand opening. Our collecting policy, given that our storage space is limited, is that anything we accpet must have a defnite Yetholm/Bowmont Valley connection. In this case the jar was made for Henry Thomas Davidson of Yetholm - presumably it once contained spirits? H.T. Davidson's business was active in Yetholm in the 1860s and early 1870s. Judginging by his newspaper adverts he too had big ambitions - it almost sounds like his shop was actually a grand department store. Click on the image to expand it. The jar - and the advert - are a reminder that Yetholm was once a much bigger commercial centre for the area than it is today.