CHAP. II. TELFORD A MASON'S APPRENTICE. 299 



states that most of the farmers' houses in the district then 

 consisted of " one storey of mud walls, or rubble stones 

 bedded in clay, and thatched with straw, rushes, or 

 heather ; the floors being of earth, and the fire in the 

 middle, having a plastered creel chimney for the escape 

 of the smoke ; and, instead of windows, small open- 

 ings in the thick mud walls admitted a scanty light." 

 The farm-buildings were of a similarly wretched de- 

 scription. 



The principal owner of the landed property in the 

 neighbourhood was the Duke of Buccleugh ; and shortly 

 after the young Duke Henry succeeded to the title and 

 estates in 1767, he introduced considerable improvements 

 in the farmers' houses and farm-steadings, and the dwell- 

 ings of the peasantry, as well as of the roads through 

 Eskdale. In. this way a demand sprang up for masons' 

 labour, and Telford's master had no want of regular 

 employment for his hands. Telford had the benefit of this 

 increase in the building operations of the neighbourhood ; 

 not only in raising rough walls and farm enclosures, but 

 in erecting bridges across rivers wherever regular roads 

 for wheel carriages were substituted for the horse-tracks 

 formerly in use. 



During the greater part of his apprenticeship Telford 

 lived in the little town of Langholm, taking frequent 

 opportunities of visiting his mother at The Crooks on 

 Saturday evenings, and accompanying her to the parish- 

 church of Westerkirk on Sundays. Langholm was then 

 a very poor town, being no better in that respect than 

 the district that surrounded it. It consisted chiefly of 

 mud hovels, covered with thatch the principal building 

 in it being the Tolbooth, a stone and lime structure, 

 the upper part of which was used as a justice-hall and 

 the lower part as a gaol. There were, however, a few 

 good houses in the little town occupied by people 

 of the better class, and in one of these lived an 



