Last month's blog concerned a photograph in our archives of a thatched cottage the location of which was a mystery. It turned out, thanks to the eagle-eye of a member who noticed that the hill in the background was Venchen, that it could be identified as a now-demolished cottage that once stood opposite Yetholm Hall. This month's photograph is conveniently labelled - 'Yetholm Mains - The Cottages'. However, once again, we are looking at a structure that has disappeared. The map below shows the location of this row of cottages, on the road between the ford over the Bowmont and the farm steadings, along with a modern photograph of the site in which not a trace of them remains to be seen. ![]() The map was surveyed in c.1860, but the photograph must have been taken in about 1910, fifty years later. The cottages look like they have recently been re-roofed, but are probably otherwise the same as buildings recorded in the mid-19th century map. They were probably demolished after the Second World War when the increasing industrialisation of agriculture rendered the need for accommodation for so many workers unnecessary, along with an expectation of more spacious and commodious houses for the workers that remained. Who are the figures that can be seen posing for the photographer? The family sitting with four collie dogs must be that of a shepherd. What became of the children? Might the young man standing alone in front of the next-door cottage be Adam Dumma, who was killed in 1917? The way of life experienced by these people has vanished along with the houses in which they once lived, though other newspaper cuttings give us an occassional glimpse of their more intimate lives. In 1890 Jane Cockburn, daughter of Peter Cockburn, farm servant at Darnchester, near Coldstream, gave birth to an illegitimate child. The father was John Mathewson/Matthieson, a farm servant who worked at Yetholm Mains and probably lived in one of these cottages. Jane took out a paternity order against John, but he was unwilling - or, as he claimed, unable - to provide for the child. However, whether it was inability or refusal to provide 'aliment', the result was six weeks in jail for John - 'Defender went to prison'. It is unknown whether a resolution was ever reached. However, the 1901 census shows that John returned to Yetholm Mains and by that date was (happily?) married, though not to Jane Cockburn. At that date he is described as aged 32, a ploughman, and living with his wife Euphemia (31), son William aged 7 and Mary Mathieson, his mother, a single woman, 'Retired outworker on a farm' (bondager?), aged 66. Thereafter the family disappears from the records. Perhaps one of the Mathiesons can be glimpsed in the photograph? Oops - Correction
It would seem that the cottages in the photograph are not the ones shown on the earliest Ordnance Survey map, running along the road from the farm to the Bowmont, as suggested above. At some point after 1860 this row of cottages was demolished and a new row erected running north from the farm to the border line - see map below, published 1898. The new row is marked with an arrow - and these must be the cottages shown in the photograph. These cottages have, in turn, been demolished, to be replaced by four modern houses.
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