Sweet Holm

The ruined building (above), currently used to store water tanks for the allotments on High Street, Yetholm, has its origin when on 19 January, 1709 William Wauchope, younger son of Wauchope of Niddrie Marischall, granted a feu charter in favour of William Sweet in Town Yetholm. At the time Andrew Wauchope, the Laird of Niddrie, offered enterprising farmers land in the village to build a house for a feu lease of 19X19 years. The original title deeds for the property were “borrowed” from Robert Nichol’s father and subsequently lost so this cannot be verified beyond doubt. My great grandfather, who was a great family historian, left notes to the effect that William did build the cottage ‘…and the windows and doors were made of English oak they brought with them.’

William (1677-1766) married Jean Tully (1683 to between 1766 and 1771) on 6 November, 1709 and together they raised seven children in the property. Towards the end of his time his daughter referred to him in court papers as ‘an old man upward of eighty and disabled from working.’  William died in 1766 but prior to this he had prepared a disposition in favour of his youngest son, George Sweet (1725-1821) who was a gardener in Swinton at the time. In this disposition the property is referred to as ‘his tenement of houses in Town Yetholm lying to the town head with the yard thereto belonging and whole parts pendicles and pertinents of the same and also the whole there three quarters of an acre of land with the Tiend sheaves thereof included now converted into a garden all fenced and enclosed round with a hedge bounded by the highway on the north the well road on the west and the croft of land on the south and east parts all lying in the parish of Yetholm shire of Roxburgh together with all rights title’.

Town Yetholm 1862 - click on image for a larger view.

His son, George Sweet (1725-1821) had married Ann Lyon (1720-<1809) about 1750. Ann may be from the family who lived at Lyon Cottage on the High Street. They had ten children of whom six lived into adulthood and four possibly died relatively young. George prepared a disposition in 1809 leaving the property to his second daughter, Jean Sweet (1763- bet 1841 and 1851) and who was his fourth child, but I think it was possibly 1821 before he died at which time the property would have passed to Jean Sweet.
 
Jean had married Archibald Hogarth (1774-1862) of Coldstream in 1807. At the time of their marriage Archibald was a joiner in Edinburgh. On the 1841 census Archibald is described as a Gardener. So I assume that he had taken over the running of the garden and possibly had begun a market garden or orchard. The Ordnance Survey map of 1862 suggests that there may be an orchard at the property.

Sweet Holm, when it was known as Orchard Cottage.

Jean prepared a disposition on 18 March 1825 which was not presented until 1853. This was in favour of her niece Anne Lyon Sweet (1801-1879) who had married her cousin Robert Sweet (1798-1866) on 19 June, 1835. They lived somewhere in Yetholm; in Pigot’s directory of 1837 Robert is described as a Linen Draper, Shopkeeper and Dealer in Groceries. However, I think he became involved in the market garden as his prominence as a seedsman grew. Jean’s disposition provided a life rent for Archibald Hogarth and following Jean’s death, he lived there with his housekeeper Agnes Bolton until his death in 1862. The reason the disposition was presented in 1853 was because Anne and Robert (by now in their 50s) were preparing to sell their property and emigrate to Australia.
 
The sale particulars are of interest as they provide a description of Sweet Holm at the time :The Dwelling House, Shop, Six-Stalled Stable and Granary, occupied by Mr Sweet who is leaving for Australia.[Kelso Chronicle 5 August, 1853, below] The Shop has been occupied as a Grocery, Seed, and Meal Shop, for the last sixteen years. The Sweets left Greenock in October 1853. Sweet Holm was sold to the local surgeon, Dr Turner (1795-1876) who was a cousin of Anne’s. He was also a landlord and so presumably was content to allow Archibald to stay in the cottage and run the market garden. On 23 January, 1863, after Archibald’s death, Turner sold the property to Andrew Wauchope of Niddrie.

On the 1871 census it appears that the property had been taken over by John Yule, gardener born in Smailholm, and his wife Ann Turnbull (born in the Cape, South Africa).

By the 1881 census John and Ann had been joined by their son, James Yule, Gardener, their daughter and two grandsons.
 
Thomas Graham, Gardener, his wife and seven of their children appear to have taken over the property by the time of the 1891 census.
 
Thomas and his family are living at the White Swan Hotel at the time of the 1901 census and there does not appear to be an entry for Sweet Holm.

Nichols Cottage, date unknown (courtesy Stenlake publishing).

By the 1911 census the property was occupied by James Nichol, Jobbing Gardener, his wife and daughter. I met Robert Nichol in 1992 and he told me that James Nichol was the son of a joiner. Certainly at the time of the 1901 census Robert Nichol senior was living at St James’ Manse; his son James Govenlock Nichol was described as a Gardener.
 
Robert told me that his aunt lived in the property until 1956 when the cottage was in need of a new thatch and some timbers required to be replaced; the whole cost being in the region of £500. Robert Nichol asked the Wauchope estate to pay half but he was refused and so the roof was allowed to decay as did the cottage. The gable end became unsafe and was knocked down. The orchard was used as a market garden by the Nichol family until they gave up the business. The Wauchope estate tried to sell the orchard for building land but the residents around about objected and the land was given over to allotments.

Nichols Cottage, March 1947, courtesy of Robert Nichol.

Anne and Robert Sweet made a life for themselves near Strathalbyn, South Australia, where they farmed 172 acres from a property named Sweet’s Cottage. They formed a partnership with Alexander McDonald, a neighbour and soon to be son-in-law who came from Glencoe, and they ran a Blacksmith shop, still in evidence today as a ruin. Robert’s death in 1866 was recorded in the Kelso Chronicle and the Glasgow Daily Herald.

Top - Sweets Cotage, South Australia, courtesy Don Hassam. Below - Sweets Cottage in 2015.

Family connections continued after Anne and Robert’s death. The picture shown below is of my Great Grandfather, Alexander Sweet, outside Sweet Holm or Nichol’s Cottage as it would be then in 1909. He is standing with a Mr Elliot of Clifton Park, I think this will be Thomas Robert Barnewall Elliot. The photo was taken by Alexander’s nephew, Charles Sweet (1864-1945) a professional photographer from Rothesay.

Blog post written by Martin Sweet, 5 times great grandson of William.

For more about the Sweet family - and with lots of references to Yetholm - visit Martin's site: http://www.thesweetfamily.co.uk/