Is this the ancestral Buchan home?

 When I travelled to Newlandrig, on the day I came down with Covid, I was probably missing the subtle clues about the landscape and the built environment. Helen was driving me around the locations associated with Robert Buchan b1813. Most of these places are significant for many other Buchan descendants. 

The Buchans were in Newlandrig by 1808, when an infant son died and was buried in Newbattle Churchyard. They were there in the 1921 census, barely. We drove along the Dalkeith Bypass (A68) to turn off onto Main St (B6372). Soon after the turnoff was Dewarton, and I really can't remember it, where the Buchans lived from about 1800-1804.

Newlandrig is half way between Pathead and Gorebridge. It is about 10 minutes drive from Dalkeith, and perhaps 20 minutes from Edinburgh by car. Being tucked in the middle of a rural landscape, only a minor road passes anywhere near it. However it is a pretty place, with wide open fields on either side, and patches of dense trees that evoke mystery, intrigue and shady-ness!

 Like many Scottish hamlets and villages built anywhere from 1700-early 1800s, houses are arrayed on each side of an existing road (or track). It is likely that Newlandrig began this way along a track between Gorebridge and Pathead. Rev Cluney notes in 1790 that Newlandrig is one of the ancient villages, and I believe this as you'll see below.

In 1841 it had about 20 dwellings which were arranged along this same 'modern' road. In 2024 there were still about the same 20 dwellings placed along each side of the road. Farmland stretched out on either side.

Lets enter it.

Welcome to Newlandrig, I walked carefully!  

Helen sent me this image last year, after I asked her to take some photos, and you can see any street on google maps.

But nothing beats walking along each side of the street, peering closely at details on the houses and then stepping back for a wider  vista.

And there are locals to talk to; well there was one local resident weeding her front garden. We did speak though.

 

Greenness abounds

But it is the variety of small scale architecture which is so appealing: Oh why was I coming down with Covid when I could have knocked on so many doors - 'The Old School House' in the image bottom right above, and some of the clearly more ancient dwellings. But all seem to have been re-roofed, modern windows installed and a general air of comfort was obvious. How different it might have been 200 years ago.

A range of dwellings of the 20 or so buildings

The entire village was owned by David McKinlay of 25 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh in 1855. Oddly enough the village of Newlandrig in 1841 was called  Newlandburn in the 1851 census, and in 1855 it was known as 'Newlandtown'. The name then reverts to Newlandrig thereafter. This threw me for a while before realising that they all referred to the same place.

The 1855 Valuation rolls record nine renters' names in Newlandrig, and a group of "19 houses at Newlandtown each under 4 pounds of yearly value...[tenanted by] sundry tenants." One renter was James Whyte in Newlandburn House and Farm - the rather ornate building with the bright blue gates above. It's rent is 50 pounds per year. It is clearly a large farm at the western end of the hamlet with a wide acreage beyond. Similarly what was once the village dairy is a large farm at the eastern end of the hamlet, on the same northern side.

Mr Alex Johnston is renting a house and offices at 12 pounds per year, Mr John Ruthven the baker a bakehouse at 9 pound per year, Mr John Bertram is renting the Schoolhouse at 5 pounds per year (also to be seen above).

James Buchan, bachelor patriarch of the Buchan clan for most of the 19th century, is probably not renting the large house shown below, that for a while I had imagined must be theirs. But I am determined to find out who was in this place*. James Buchan, noted as 'Forrester, Vogrie [Estate]' is renting a 'House and Byre' for 4 pounds 10 shillings. Other 'dwelling houses' are rented to named folk: Janet Low, grocer, James Mill gardener, George Buchan quarrier (James' brother relocated from Dewarton to be in Newlandrig for the 1851 census) and Mrs Aitchison - all rents being 4 pounds per year.

* If the Johnston family of Newlandrig turn out to be Jean Johnston's family, then this lovely old house is still in the family. 

 

A family together in Newbattle Churchyard

 Robert was 74 years old when a wagon struck him at eight o’clock in the morning on a winters day in January 1887. He died instantly. His wife would learn quickly of his death as his body was returned home immediately to Newtongrange, a mining village less than one mile from the colliery. 

Certainly a doctor was required to certify the cause of death, it being an accident. Two days later he was interred in the Newbattle Churchyard, now known as the Old Newbattle Cemetery. 

Scotland has a system called Register of Corrected Entries (RCE). 

Since 1855, all death certificates are issued  following a declaration by a medical doctor. This is the system we have in Australia. The death must be registered within 8 days. If the registration is delayed by the need for an investigation, then it will often generate an RCE. 

RCE are also created about sudden and violent deaths for the same reason. As well they are created for divorces, and any significant change about a birth as well. Often not much more is learned about the death, and newspapers often provide a greater amount of detail.

I have often wondered whether the mines ever compensated men who died at work, and whether this occurred for single accidents in contrast to ‘mass casualties’. Did someone pay for their funeral, and a headstone? Was Robert a pauper, sharing a common grave? After nearly 150 years how could we know. See my separate post about later recognition of deaths in mining, and sometimes name Robert and his relatives who also died in the mines.

Finding where he is buried in Newbattle Churchyard has given me some comfort. He was married in the church from which he was buried. That was in 1847, 40 years earlier. His wife and many of his children lived within a mile of two, and I expect would have been there.

Helen outside the front of the now-closed Newbattle Church of Scotland. The wooden door was very old and very thick.

The church was built of stones taken from the Newbattle Abbey destroyed by English forces in 1544. Initially a church was built a short distance away, but it was unsafe. In 1720 it was decided to build a third church, again using the stones, funded by the Marquis of Lothian and costing £4,000. It was open by 1729. In 1851 two new galleries were built for the new populations of Esbank (ritzy) and Newtongrange (mining village, see post).

Another extension occurred in 1875.

Interestingly, the nearby cemetery is surrounded by stone walls nearly 12 feet high, but these have tapered to the small walls seen here in front of the church at the road.

Robert was buried one plot away from his eldest brother James who had died just over three years earlier in late 1883. Bachelor James as head of the household, had lived in Newlandrig almost all of his 84 years, possibly in the same house. He took over the role of forrester to James Dewar of Vogrie Estate after his father died in 1818, and in 1855 was renting the second most costly house in the village. James died of senile decay, nursed by his youngest sister Helen, who also never married. 

Helen was the next sibling to be buried in the plot containing James. Having lived nearly her entire life in James’ home this seems fitting, and I hope they got on well. She died in Sushie Brae House in Borthwick Parish in 1894. Did she lose tenancy of the home in Newlandrig after James’ death? Something for me to research.

The siblings’ nephew, another Robert Buchan, died in 1896 and he was buried with his uncle Robert. He was the son of another sibling, George Buchan. He was 64 when he died of chronic dyspepsia and general exhaustion, exhaustion brought on by mining.

Soon after followed Robert’s wife Margaret Ireland in 1898. As a widow she had moved from the mining village of Newtongrange to Hight St, Dalkeith. I might have walked passed her home but was not clued into the number. Living with her were the two bachelors, a nephew and her grandson with Robert. She was buried in the plot with James and Helen, not her husband. Was this because his plot already held his parents, although this is not recorded? She died at the age of 75 from heart disease and general asthenia or weakness.

Then another Margaret, the wife of nephew Robert, was buried in a plot next to Robert the elder. She had moved to Edinburgh after her husband’s death in 1896, perhaps to live with a married daughter. Once again she was not buried in the same plot as her husband, and no-one else is listed in this grave site.

Finally Robert’s daughter Isabella Murray was buried in the plot next to him in 1915.

A list in a book is now the record of a family together.

When I visited the churchyard on Day 2 it was wild, unkept and wet and the grass was often over my knees. When I went back the next day with Cousin Helen, it was in the process of being mowed by a man on a largish ride-on mower, and a man with a whipper-snipper. They had not yet reached this part of the cemetery. So all my warnings to Helen were still a little bit needed. It was lovely to see that the churchyard had not been abandoned at all!

This is the approximately Section 7 of the cemetery, where the Buchan family have been laid to rest. 

This section at the rear had not yet been mowed.

How it looked on Day 2 and why I sensed it was somewhat neglected. I was struck by the 10 feet high stone walls (not literally), and the mass of trees around it. The churchyard is now about 300m away from the church, with these same dense trees between them.

Robert lies among family, reunited with siblings James and Helen, wife Margaret and nephew Robert and his wife Margaret, and his daughter Isabella.

An intriguing possibility. Within these four grave plots are several people named Brown, as well as a two day old infant named Buchan. One of these Browns, a name not connected to us as far as I know, is called Jane McCree Brown. Remember my search for Janet McRae? And that an ancestor of one of my McRae cluster matches is Jane McCree, to me a new variant spelling that I had not checked before (so my search term ‘m*ra’ would not have found it).

Jane was a 15 month child from Hunterfield who died in 1889. Knowing the propensity in Scotland to include a full name of someone when naming a wee baby, could this be my Janet McRae? Or some-one related to her? 

Fawlty ‘Esbank’ Towers

Here is my frank and honest review of my time at Fawlty Esbank Towers, please do not repost to TripAdvisor as I will have to sue you.

Admittedly, Ewen/Basil had not received my email advising that I hoped to arrive at midday and was that OK? Previously he had indicated my room would be ready at 1pm. So he was a little flustered when I knocked at the wrong door at 12.30pm, the main door as it happened, but there was no advertising nor instruction to act in any particular way. 

He hurried me to the door at the left, not actually saying so in words, merely nodding his head and indicating with his arm. ‘No it was not alright that I was there at 12.30 but that now that I was there we’d make do’. I was charmed. Housekeeping and tradies filled the corridors. And there were quite a few corridors. We must have gone through at least five doors before he stopped and said that the chap in my room had wanted another night so I had been given a twin room. No problem, it really was twice the size of the single room. 

Then followed a conversation about WiFi. Because the room I would have for the first night was in a separate part of the house than the single room, and there were ‘steel frames’ and the WiFi didn’t work through both parts of the house, best not to connect to the WiFi till tomorrow. He assured me there was WiFi but if I was desperate today there was the pub and the library.

I learned that there was WiFi in the dining room and that’s where I used it. Very occasionally I could get emails in my room, but I could not search on the internet.

I asked about breakfast. It was served at 8.45 only. There was no menu, and you had no choice. Why I asked. 'Everyone ordered scrambled eggs, and I know that they would really like Scottish cooking. Always fresh fruit for first course’.  Luckily I was spared the experience till my third day, as I was booked into the Records Centre on days 1 and 2, and they opened at 9am. The train was 25 minutes, and there was WiFi on the train!

Breakfast was a typical interaction. I arrived with a bright smile and asked what was for breakfast. ‘A surprise’, no apparently I really wasn’t allowed to know. It turned out to be fish cakes. The other couple in the dining room, had a few concerns. One it seemed was lack of WiFi, and I let her know that the dining room seemed to work. I will add in all fairness, that Basil did turn on the gas fireplace on day 2 when I sat there to get the WiFi, and it was quite cozy. It had rained all day.

Their other concern was the fish cakes. The woman really couldn’t eat fishcakes a third time! She would prefer French toast, which had been promised to her. Following my fishcakes I had a ‘posty’ because Basil liked to thicken his brogue when he was using Scottish words. However he never liked to explain what they were. Actually it was nice. Kind of a fried pastry?? with a strawberry on top. Coffee and a bread roll with jam.

When I arrived a bit early, to take advantage of the you-know-what in the dining room, Basil dropped the daily paper in front of me. Well it was to say Trump had been found guilty so I said thank you, and started reading. When the other couple arrived, I was instructed to move to their table, ‘and if you don’t know the whole of their lives by the end of breakfast….’ What would happen? I merely replied that ‘Ewen you can’t tell me where to sit’. My table was a lovely one by the window. He already had me pinned as a rebel when I declined breakfast for two days already.

This is the dining room. Ewen/Basil is a MacRae and this of course this interests me due to my mystery Janet McRae. But these fine ancestors of his are from the highlands. His wife described them to me. I feel he has fallen a bit from the lofty social heights indicated by these quite nice paintings.

The B&B featured genealogical mugs, and there was a small library of books on the Highlands and Scotland in general under a table. The fire was off to the left of this image. Yes the tablecloths were plastic.

We had a rather garbled conversation about where one could eat in the evening, where he was surprised that I did not need to be guided by him. He was a person who believed he was a bit of a story-teller. Twice I heard him say to others that they would have to ‘endure’ another story. To most questions where a direct response might have been possible, there was instead an anecdote or three, about his past employment, the bungling of other departments, why he was in danger of being closed down, but also why his Internet bill was so high, and that he never used a mobile phone. He also ‘entertained’ a young American couple with an explanation of the ‘4th Jacobite rebellion’ more commonly known as the American war of independence.

I found the easiest way to respond was monosyllabic. Whatever you said was answered with a ‘why would you do that, when ……’. He had absolutely no sense of someone having an alternative perspective.

This was not going well already, but I decided to ask how the meeting with the building inspector went. Apparently it went well. So, emboldened, I asked about getting the receipt for the cash I’d paid up front, my mistake, and to remember that I had not had two breakfasts that I had actually paid up front for. In all the stress of the inspection meeting, he had forgotten to get me a receipt. In preparing the receipt I finally did get, he didn’t seem to have referred back to the costs outlined in his confirmation email to me. The receipt I found on my bed the next day was inaccurate in at least four places, not something I expected from an ‘MBA’. I was going to tackle him about that when the time was right. He had also given my change in a handful of small coin denominations, which I felt was just a bit petty.

To be continued as I am just about to board.

Made it to Singapore Airport, known as Changi, so not by name a soothing place to be as an Australian.

My big QANTAS plane is being cleaned and refuelled. The last leg was probably the best flight ever. I had no one in my row, all the babies slept, food was delicious and I slept about 7 hours.

Feeling more hopeful that Tuesday is not a write off.

In  the end I never confronted Basil. On the Friday spent ‘tootling’ around the 25 square miles where Robert Buchan seems to have spent most of his life , ie 5x5 kilometre area, with Helen, I started to feel tired and my sore throat was worse.

That night was a lot of coughing, and on Saturday, the day before I was due to fly home, I tried to get an antibiotic. You see I had ‘foolishly’ given them to Nick. Thus breaking the protective spell that just having a medicine would ward off any disease that medicine might treat.

Kelly advised there was a telephone service. I asked Basil, who had never heard of it. He suggested perhaps his local GP or a pharmacy? Well the GP was closed on Saturday and the closest prescribing chemist was in Edinburgh. Meanwhile Basil had rung NHS24, and was on hold, and so he offered to drive me to the chemist or local A&E - really not required to get an antiobiotic that may not even have been appropriate. I was a little off-put by being directed to the back seat, still with dog sheeting in place. It looked clean enough. But I had started this saga, so I determined to finish it. 

We were on the phone for some 30 minutes before being answered. A lady insisted that we pull over and give her an accurate address where we were parked and the colour and make of the car ‘for patient safety’. Basil had parked somewhat illegally on a corner. But having given that detail we must not move until a clinician came on. I then endured a range of inappropriate remarks about his Australian grandmother, descendant of some one illustrious who came back to Scotland and was buried with a wallaby. Even if it was an interesting story, I was too clammy to appreciate it. There were other monologues, mostly about the costs of everything, and if  they (the NHS) can’t accept the assessment of an Australian GP then blah blah blah.

I won’t bore you with a quite reasonable assessment triaging telephone call.  Finally I could give her my own mobile number, and we were allowed to drive on. But I was still waiting on a call from another clinician, this one with prescribing rights. Then a funny thing happened. At home I do not accept calls from unknown numbers. On my new SIM card, the settings applied. About two hours later I saw that I had missed 4 calls from the same number. When I rang it back, it was not an available number.

A bit despondent, I changed the settings and logically decided that I should spend the last day in Scotland, on a rare sunny day, in my tiny single room ‘resting’ and ‘keeping my fluids up’. I did have a bad cough and I did feel clammy. Not long after I got a call from the doctor again, sweet young thing. But she judged it viral - probably true - and so no antibiotics for me unless I could organize to get to an Assessment Centre. Way too much unnecessary use of the NHS.

However I was starting to feel a lot better, and I think the phone call did it! I decided to go into Edinburgh on the bus that stopped just outside the B&B, rather than the 30 minute walk to the train, although I had a ticket. Good decision, did two hop on-hop off bus tours, including one out to Leith, where I had hoped to visit. I saw Arthur’s Seat which I’d hoped to climb. Another great decision, great weather and really the cough was settling down.

I blithely informed QANTAS that I was not unwell or infectious. Both kinda true.

He’d overcharged me about ten pounds. I think that the hour of his time and the ‘running down of his mobile charge from 100% to 44%’ was worth it. In any case, as you might imagine, I wanted no further contact with him on any topic.

Over 24 hours later he knocked on my door, not long before I was due to leave, and asked 'was there anything he could do for me', after first commenting ‘that I hadn’t died in the night’. I said I was being picked up at 11. Well that’s no good, says he, the girls coming into clean, do the kitchen first, have a cuppa, there is a lovely garden….and when I said I’ll go to the garden, he said, ‘If you stop interrupting me, I was about to say you can stay here till 11’.

I was so glad to leave.

Signing off from onboard the last plane home - Singapore to Sydney. Still no one else in my row😊

Landed now, on second cuppa tea - so restorative. Now I am off to beg the Murray’s driver to let me on an earlier bus if possible. Spoiler alert - there was no earlier bus.