On the Bowmont near Yetholm

Yetholm has been a holiday destination since the early nineteenth century – with the result that it has been much photographed and many postcards published showing the two villages and surrounding countryside. YHS has many postcards in its archive, three of which are shown above. Two of them are entitled ‘On the Bowmont near Yetholm’, while the third is ‘Among the Yetholm Hills’. None of them have postmarks, so it’s hard to date them. Our best guess is that the colourised image is from the 1930s, while the one showing a wooden bridge is later – possibly from the 1940s - ?

The cards are puzzling because none of them actually show Yetholm and the view is difficult to place. After pondering the issue – and looking at possible views close to either Town- or Kirk-Yetholm – it turns out the photographs were taken over 2½ miles from Town Yetholm, over the border, on the road from Mindrum (B6352). A recent image of the same scene can be seen below. Why did the photographer choose this place to set up his tripod and take a photograph? Possibly because this is the view many visitors would first see, especially if they came from Mindrum station. While not overly dramatic, the panorama is still striking as you drive over the brow of the hill just after Bowmont Hill Farm and you get a glimpse of the valley ahead. The photographer has travelled a little bit further on, dropped down, and paused for a moment to capture the loop of the river.

Clearly the tree in the centre of the image has now gone – as has the rickety footbridge in the middle photograph. Perhaps both were swept away when the Bowmont Water was in a less tranquil mood, as it often is. The straight line of trees shown on the left of the images runs along a dyke - dug when? - which is there to hold back flooding from the fields on the other side. The bridge presumably linked Bowmont Hill Farm with Shotton, but who built it and why exactly it was needed is not known. Any ideas? Not only has the tree gone, but the general scene as shown in the postcards seems much more wooded – the slope that drops down to the river on the right has mature trees growing on it, rather than the scrubby gorse that grow there today. In fact, it is gorse that dominates the recent photograph of the scene, taken in April 2019 - colourful, but perhaps a sign that the pastures are less carefully maintained today.