Current Buildings in Tweedsmuir Parish Listed by Historic Scotland.
1.The Crook Inn (Listed as Category C in 2002).
The Inn received its first licence in 1604 and is one of the oldest licenced premises in Scotland. The name Crook is probably from the word Cruik the Scot's word for the hook from which cooking-pots were suspended. The Cruik or Cruiks hung from an iron Sway. The Sway was a hinged right angled bracket fixed to the side of the fireplace allowing the cooking pots to be swung forward away from the fire - the hearth being at floor level.
The first date after 1604 when the Crook appeared in the records was in July 1624 when in the accounts for Peebles a Robert Fotheringham was reimbursed expenses incurred in the transport of a prisoner , Walter Grahame, from Peebles to Dumfries with an overnight stop at the Crewik.
The building was remodelled and considerably extended - doubled in size infact - in the mid nineteenth century. The new building extending southwards into what is the presend day car park. It was at this time that the public bar was added which has probably changed very little from that date. Part of the fabric of the original building was possibly incorporated into the new extended building but this not specific. By 1936 when the Art Deco road-house style infill single story extension and the Art Deco formal garden added the building had been reduced in size - the south extension having disappeared.
The previous building was a Coaching Inn and there was also a farm on the site. Its a great pity that the Coaching Inn swinging sign which must have been above the main door has not survived as I am sure that this would have depicted a cooking pot alluding to warmth and hospitality. The shepherd's crook and gambling lambs "logo" I am sure came with Art Deco. There are many stories involving the Crook including fugitive Covenanters, Church Ministers being ordained there, Poachers and many famous Scots such as Raby Burns, Walter Scott etc enjoying the hospitality and good cheer of the Inn.
Sadly the present owners have closed the Inn (Our Pub!) and have made an application to convert the site into flats - November 2006. The local populace is up in arms and a battle to safeguard the Crook as an Inn has commenced. The battle is still on - March 2010.
Photographs in Picture Gallery.
2 .Victoria Lodge (Listed as Category C in 2002).
The building, beside the Talla Reservoir, was built as part of the Talla Reservoir Project as the Headquarters of the Edinburgh Water Board. There is a marble plaque at the front door commemorating the completion of the railway to the Reservoir site. It is a fine example of late Victorian architecture. It has in recent years become a private residence and very recently a B and B. The dignity of the original board-room with its splendid oak panelling has been retained.
The first resident of the building was probably John Yuill Watt the Inspector of Works who is recorded as residing there in the 31st March 1901 census. He was living there with his wife Mary and two children John and Lizzie. The building is described as Edinburgh & District Water Works Dwelling House and Office. The family would have had a wonderful view of the reservoir construction site and it is a pity that they did not not take a selection of photographs of the construction of the reservoir - or maybe they did and there is a Watt family photograph album waiting to be unearthed! However to be fair in the Souvenir Booklet about the opening of the Talla Reservoir there are a number of good photographs at least two of which must have been taken from the upper windows of Victoria Lodge. One view that the family would not have photographed would have been that of the Workmans Camp. In the 1901 census there are approx 200 souls including women and children crammed in to a selection of huts one of which housed 60 people!. The number of people involved in the construction rose over the next couple of years to over 500. It was probably the conditions in the camp that led to the spread of the 1902/3 epidemic of small-pox in Scotland. The British Medical Journal of the day stated that cases of small-pox in Scotland were all traced to the Edinburgh Water Works Talla Centre.
Photographs in the Talla Reservoir Construction and Talla Reservoir sections of the Picture Gallery
3 .Tweedsmuir Parish Church. (Listed as Category B).
The current Parish Church (Established Church of Scotland) was built in 1874 replacing a previous church built in 1644 which is considered as the first church on the site. The mound on which the church is built was known as Quarter Knowe and has a very complex history. (Separate section on Quarter Knowe under preparation.) The current church was designed by John Lessels. The building is Norman T plan gabled with tower and broach spire, whinstone with red sandstone dressings and spire. The doorway is said to have been inspired by Dryburgh Abbey. The war memorial in the vestibule was made from an oak tree planted by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford.
The memorial covers most of the east wall of the vestibule - unfortunately due to the small size of the vestibule one cannot stand far enough back to appreciate far less try and photograph the wall. The parchment scroll-work on the memorial was carried out by George Hope Tait - for genealogical information on George Hope Tait go to the Hopes of Traquair page. The bell is dated 1773 and came from the previous church. Inside are some nice stained glass windows particularly the main window in the east gable by Ballantyne and Allan of Edinburgh 1902. This window is dedicated to John Ker an eminent Minister in the United Presbyterian Church ( also plaque on gable end of the Bield, where he was born.) The double window in the north gable is in memory of John Martin and Margaret Loch Hope, long resident in the Parish erected by their son John Martin, Chicago USA. (John Martin died in 1850 and Margaret Loch Hope in 1860 and are buried in the kirkyard). Also in the church is the 1662 date stone from the original manse and also a brass memorial plaque to Dr. David Welsh of Earlshaugh(south end of the parish) who was the Moderator of the General Assembly in 1843 and who famously walked out with hundreds of other Ministers to form the Free Church. The plaque however, is silent on the forming of the Free Church and Dr. Welsh's involvment!
Photographs in Picture Gallery
4. Tweedsmuir Kirkyard (Listed as Category B)
The most interesting headstones are those of John Hunter a Covenanting Martyr. It is said that John Paterson (Sir Walter Scot's Old Mortality) recut the inscriptions. (See Picture Gallery)
The Inscription reads:-
Here lyes
The body of John Hunter
Martyr who was cruelly
Murdered at Corehead
by Col James Douglas and
his party for his adherance
To the Word of God and
Scotland's covenanted
Work of Reformation
1685
Erected in the year 1726.
(Reverse of Stone)
when Zions King was robbed
of his Right
His witnesses in Scotland
put to flight
When popish prelates &
Indulgancies
All who would not unto
their idols bow
They socht them out &
and who they found they slew
For owning of Christ's cause
I then did die
My blood for vengeance on
His en'mies did cry.
(The following was added in 1910 on a separate stone.)
John Hunter a Tweedsmuir lad
was accidently visiting a
sick friend at Corehead when
timely in the morning he was
surprised with Douglas and
his dragoons. He fled to the
hill a great way, but one
named Scott, being well horsed, compassed
him and came before him
He was most barbarouslie shot through the body,
felled on the head with the neck of a gun,
and casted headlong over a high steep craig.
Contempory Record.
J.H.
1660-1685
Another memorial is that to the 30+ men who died during the construction of the Talla Reservoir project (1895-1905). Not all died from industrial accidents, a small number died during the smallpox epidemic of 1902/1903. The grave stretches the width of the kirkyard. Oral tradition has it that there were 14 wooden crosses on the piece of land adjacent to the mortuary at the dam site. Whether the figure of 30+ on the headstone includes this figure of 14 is not known.
The John Hunter memorial erected in 1726 (he died in 1685) is not the oldest in the kirkyard, that would appear to be that of John Welsh who died in Over Menzion and dated 1711. There are in the records references to older stones that were whinstone slate which have now vanished.
The most common names in the older part of the Kirkyard are as one would expect are Tweedie/Tweedie Stodart, and the Welshes. The next are Andersons and perhaps surprisingly, Hopes! These Hopes were tenant farmers while at this time my own ancestors came via Selkirk from a village called Bole in Traquair Parish.
There is an interesting stone slab on which the Royal Commission commented as follows in 1959. " What seems, however, to be a relic either of the church (previous) or of a contemporary burial-vault is to be seen in a carved stone slab which now leans against the NW corner of the existing building. This slab is carved in relief with a shield, surrounded by a helm and mantling and having at either side an hour glass and, below, a cartouche which no doubt once bore an inscription; weathering, however, has made the charges on the shield illegible and entirely removed the inscription." We will never know to which family the slab referred but as its location is against the church wall adjacent to the Tweedie/Tweedie Stodart burial area it is reasonable to assume that it was a memorial plaque from an ancient Tweedie family burial vault.
One other headstone of local interest, is that of Jeannie of the Crook who was the landlady of the Crook Inn, which in her day was well known to a number of famous Scotsmen. The Rev. Hamilton Paul, Minister of Broughton, wrote a song in which he proposed to Jeannie, however she refused. She died in 1839.
The Rev. John Ker DD of the main window of the church and plaque on the Bield building who died in 1866 is buried here.
Photographs in Picture Gallery
5 .Carlow's Bridge. (Listed as Category B)
This bridge spans the river Tweed at the point where it narrows to flow through the rocky defile known as Carlow's Linn, 400 yards SW of Tweedsmuir Church. It is built entirely of rubble masonry and comprises a single arch having a span of 30 feet and a width of 15 feet. Upon the south facing of the bridge a block of sandstone bearing the date of 1783 is built into the fabric above the crown of the arch. The structure evidently replaces the earlier bridge shown on William Edgar's map of peeblesshire, surveyed in 1741. (The above details are from the Royal Commission survey for Peeblesshire in 1959) Various spellings can be found in the records such as Carlows and Carlowse but the 's version has found favour with both Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission (RCAHMS). I wonder who Mr or Mrs Carlow (Carlaw) was who gave their name to the Linn (waterfall). John Buchan referred to it as Curlew Linn in his short story titled A Sentimental Journey in his early book Scholar Gypsies. Or, is Carlow a corruption of Carlin the Scots word for witch - Witches Linn? This bridge is the sole access for the large lorries taking away the harvested spruce and pine trees from the Tweedsmuir forests. The fact that this ancient bridge designed for a mule and cart can cope with the weight of these lorries is a wonder. Possible plans for an alternative river crossing are being considered.
Photographs in Picture Gallery
6 .The Bield. (Listed as Category B).
This site was occupied by an Inn in the early 18th century and the oldest part of the present building may belong to that period. The structure was extended and partially rebuilt in 1726 and further additions were made about a century later. Above the front door there is a lintel bearing the incised initials IT and ME for James Tweedie of Oliver and his wife Margaret Ewart. who were married in 1718. (The above details are from the Royal Commission survey for Peeblesshire in 1959).
However in the second half of the 17th century during the Covenanting period there is mention of an Inn/Change House known as the Bild in the records and one presumes that this must have been a predecessor of the building mentioned above.
The building has a commerative plaque on the south gable to John Ker an emminent Minister of the United Presbyterian Church who was born there. (See Church and Kirkyard above.)
The above sites can be found on Multimap - Map. Pan north for the Crook Inn. The Bield is on the main road at the foot of the shorter drive to Oliver. Victoria Lodge is adjacent to the Talla Reservoir dam.
Photographs of the sites mentioned above appear in the Picture Gallery