New Monumental Inscriptions volume for Lyne, Megget and Manor, Peeblesshire

'Adam and Eve' symbolic stone on the grave of Jannet Veitch who died at the age of 16

We’re pleased to report that we have just published another new Monumental Inscriptions volume on CD, this time for the parishes of Lyne & Megget and of Manor in Peeblesshire, Scotland.

Lyne & Megget is the smallest of the Peeblesshire parishes and the Megget part was part of the parish of Traquair prior to the Reformation. Lyne churchyard is small with only 32 stones remaining but this includes one of the few 'Adam and Eve' symbolic stones in the Borders and which is in excellent condition.

There are no known burial grounds in the Megget valley but many of the inhabitants used St Mary’s of the Lowes kirkyard.  The parish of Megget includes the farms and settlements of Henderland, Craigierig, Cramalt, Glengaber, Meggetknows, Shielhope, Syart and Winterhopeburn. A new church for Megget, the 'Tin Kirk' was dedicated in 1905.

The books of Dr Clement Bryce Gunn, and the published photographs of T Crozier, shed so much light on the parishes and the events there.  Pre-1855 monumental inscriptions in both Lyne and Manor churchyards were recorded by Sheila A Scott in 1971, along with the other churchyards in Peeblesshire. We are indebted to her work, to the foresight of Mr J H Hendrie who initiated the project and to the Scottish Genealogy Society who have kindly allowed us to use her transcriptions where some of the stones have become unreadable or have not been identifiable in this survey.   

Usually, we include Hearth Tax or Poll Tax records from the 1690s but for Peeblesshire, the only records held at the National Records of Scotland summarise payments collected by place and do not include the usual list of names and individual payments.

The Blackwood & Smith collection, held at the National Records of Scotland, provide a wide range of historical documents for Peeblesshire, including the Peebles Lieutenancy and Militia Records.  These bundles of papers include
the minutes, correspondence, accounts and other papers and the returns and militia lists drawn up by the parish schoolmasters. The transcriptions of some of these militia lists are included together with some unique correspondence which has survived.

School admission registers for all three schools are available and are transcribed here.  In all, 699 admissions are listed from 1873 to 1919.

This volume on CD comprises a map of Peeblesshire, introduction, history of the parishes, lists of ministers of Lyne, Megget and Manor, Lyne & Megget Proclamations 1727-1730, Lieutenancy Records, plans of Lyne and Manor Churchyards, Lyne monumental inscriptions (gravestone inscriptions), photographs of all the visible gravestones, War Memorials, Rolls of Honour, school admission registers for Lyne Public School, Manor School, Megget School, indexes of surnames in Lieutenancy Records, monumental inscriptions and school admission registers. The school admission registers show the date admitted, child's name, parent's name, address, date of birth, previous school, leaving date.

There are 211 different surnames included in the inscriptions on the gravestones, and they are: Affleck, Ainslie, Aitken, Aldous, Alexander, Allan, Alston, Anderson, Ashford, Baillie, Ballantine, Ballantyne, Balmbra, Barr, Barrie, Bayne, Beattie, Bell, Bertram, Black, Blackie, Blacklaw, Blake, Bolton, Brockie, Brodie, Brown, Browning, Bruce, Brunton, Bryden, Brydon, Burnett, Cairns, Calderwood, Campbell, Chambers, Chancellor, Clark, Clelland, Cochrane, Coltherd, Coltman, Corrie, Cranston, Cruickshank, Currie, Dalgleish, Dalgliesh, Davidson, Day, Deans, Denholm, Dickson, Docherty, Dodds, Edward, Elder, Elliot, Fergusson, Findlay, Finlayson, Finnie, Fisher, Fleming, Forrest, Forrester, Forsyth, Forsythe, Fotheringham, Fraser, Freer, French, Frier, Gall, Geddes, Gilchrist, Glendinning, Gossar, Gowans, Graham, Gray, Grieve, Haldane, Hall, Hamilton, Handyside, Harper, Hart, Hatton, Hay, Helm, Henderson, Hewat, Hill, Hislop, Hodge, Hogg, Hoggan, Hooper, Horsburgh, Hunter, Hunter, Hutchison, Inglis, Irvine, Jamieson, Jeffrey, Johnston, Jordan, Kennedy, Ker, Kerr, Ketchen, Kinnon, Laidlaw, Lamb, Laurie, Law, Lawson, Lee, Linton, Little, Lothian, Mackenzie, Macpherson, Macrae, Macvicar, Marshall, Martin, Mathieson, Mccallum, Mcculloch, Mcintosh, Mclaren, Mclean, Melrose, Mitchell, Mitchelson, Moffat, Moir, Morrison, Morrow, Munro, Murdoch, Murray, Naesmith, Nisbet, Orr, Paterson, Paxton, Penney, Pettigrew, Pirgivie, Porteous, Portious, Proudfoot, Purves, Rae, Read, Reid, Richardson, Ritchie, Robb, Robertson, Ross, Rutherford, Salton, Scarth, Sclater, Scott, Smellie, Smith, Somerville, Stevenson, Stewart, Stuart, Swan, Swinton, Taggart, Tait, Taylor, Telfer, Tennant, Thomson, Tod, Todd, Trinder, Turner, Tweedie, Usher, Utterson, Vair, Veitch, Waddell, Wales, Walkinshaw, Watson, Weir, Weston, White, Whitson, Wightman, Wilday, Wilkie, Wilson, Wood, Wood-Gush, Wotherspoon, Young, Yule.

The CD costs £7 plus postage.

You can get a copy at our archive at 52 Overhaugh St, Galashiels, TD1 1DP, alternatively, please use the Buy now button below.
If there are other publications you want to buy at the same time, please contact our Sales Team on our Contacts page using the contact type Order for Publications.

Delivery Options

Lyne, Megget & Manor MI - UK - 2nd class £8.55 GBP Lyne, Megget & Manor MI - UK - 1st class £10.15 GBP Lyne, Megget & Manor MI - EU Airmail £10.50 GBP Lyne, Megget & Manor MI - World Zone 1 £11.30 GBP Lyne, Megget & Manor MI - World Zone 2 £11.30 GBP Lyne, Megget & Manor MI - Surface Mail £11.10 GBP Lyne, Megget & Manor MI - World Zone 3 £11.30 GBP

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A Very Interesting Talk at Innerleithen

A very interesting talk with nice slides today at Innerleithen on their book 'A Family Life Revealed: The Stuarts at Traquair 1491 – 1875' by Catherine Maxwell Stuart and Margaret Fox, including information about the additions to Traquair House at various times. 

See my September review of their book: 'A Family Life Revealed'.

They didn't mention dragon's blood and I forgot to ask, but they did bring along another recent book, 'A Tour to the Preston Guild 1802' - the images of Lord Linton's entertaining report of his visit to Preston in 1802 - including who he met and the places he visited with a transcription of the report and brief notes on some of the many people he dissed.
The Preston Guild, which relates to Preston, Lancashire (not Preston, Berwickshire), dates back to 1179 and since 1542 met every 20 years for guild members to renew their membership. 

More about The Preston Guild.

They also mentioned that they're intending to do research on Lady Christina Stuart who eloped and married Cyrus Griffin, the last President of the Continental Congress (America) and I'm sure that will be very interesting though I expect that is several years' work.

The talk was packed and the only downer was that several lights did not work so we didn't sell any copies of our Innerleithen Monumental Inscriptions CD or indeed, many other publications.

Traquair Exhibition and Book Launch at Heritage Hub

Following on from Peter's post and book review I've received this invitation from the staff at the Heritage Hub which is open to all members of the Borders FHS:

We'd love to welcome you to an exhibition and book launch we're hosting on 19th September at 6pm.  Catherine Maxwell Stuart and Margaret Fox have written a brilliant book on Traquair and  the launch will celebrate this and provide an opportunity for the Border community to see some treasured items from the Traquair collections in the Exhibition Space at the Heritage Hub, Hawick. 

If you intend to come to this event please reply to Traquair House by email to: <enquiries@traquair.co.uk> or by phoning - 01 896 830 323 .

Book Review: 'A Family Life Revealed' about the Stuarts at Traquair from 1491 to 1875

This book by Catherine Maxwell Stuart and Margaret Fox not only tells the story of the Stuarts and the major political upheavals, their support for Catholicism, the problems they faced in the community because of that support and strained relations in the family; the family’s debts and fines and general Scottish history but also lots of interesting snippets of local interest.

There are accounts of purchases made for clothing, wine and pans.  Illnesses and medicines (including dragon’s blood !) are mentioned, there are letters home from the children of the 4th Earl of Traquair, who were being educated in Paris between 1714 and 1718; their support for the Jacobite cause, changes to the house and estate, correspondence about matters in America leading up to the Revolution and its aftermath, a mining enterprise in Spain and Portugal, Catholic emancipation in the 19th century, and the later Victorian developments.

If there’s one drawback, it’s minor: on a few of the early documents, the caption doesn’t state the year. I found that very confusing and unhelpful; in some cases, I guessed the year by reading a few pages back but in other cases it was unclear. Although the documents themselves may not be dated, the authors evidently knew the year and it would have been so much easier to put the year in brackets in the caption.

There are lots of illustrations - views, people, accounts and letters, buildings; nearly every page is illustrated and some pages have more than one picture. There’s an abbreviated family tree (with 13 of the 17 children born between 1695 and 1711 to Lady Mary Maxwell, wife of the 4th Earl) inside the front cover and a timeline of the principal events including accessions of monarchs inside the back cover. Its writing style makes it easy to read even for children.
You can just read straight through, however the format is such that you can dip in and out.
The authors have really made the documents in the archive come alive and tell the stories of the Stuart family at Traquair.

Overall, it is an extraordinarily fascinating book and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
The book has 108 pages, the paperback version costs £11.99 and the hardback costs £14.99 and can be obtained from Traquair House or online at the Traquair House Shop.

The authors will also be coming to talk to us at our meeting on Sunday 28th October in Innerleithen Parish Church Hall at 2.30pm and no doubt they’ll be bringing along copies of their book to sell and sign.

Parishes Ancient & Modern

As you may have seen we’ve now got pages on our web-site for the Counties of Berwick, Peebles and Selkirk. Those for Roxburgh should make an appearance soon. Some of these pages include more detail than others so if you can contribute to one of the pages get in touch with us either via this blog or through the contact form on the web-site (you’ll need to scroll down the page to find it). Please let us know about any mistakes or if you find a broken link.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the local minister who wondered why Innerleithen and Traquair merited a page each whilst Walkerburn didn’t. For most part the parishes listed are the historic parishes not the current ones. Whilst there's nothing quite as formal as a cut-off date in practice it's those parishes that existed in 1855 the point at which Civil Registration was introduced to Scotland and the cut-off date for the Old Parochial Records held by the General Registrar's Office for Scotland (and available on the Scotland's People web site). Not that we’re totally consistent as Kirkhope and Caddonfoot do have their own page despite being 19^th century creations which have now been absorbed by neighbouring parishes. However I did borrow the Church of Scotland Yearbook from the local minister and in time the parish pages will indicate what has happened to the ancient parishes – and where I can find one a link to the church web-site.