Sir W. Elliot on Benholm and its Vicinity. 309 



Lord Hertford. Proc. Soc. Antiq., Sc. 1274) * Although 

 not specially named, Denholm could hardly have escaped the 

 ravages of the expedition under the earl of Sussex in 1570, 

 when Jedburgh, Hawick, and Kelso were plundered and 

 burnt and the whole country laid waste. (Redpath, 634). 



In 1658 Sir Archibald Douglas, of Cavers, purchased the 

 lands of Spittal and Denholm from William, Lord Cranstoun, 

 and reunited them to the estate of Cavers. From this time 

 the circumstances of the village rapidly improved. The new 

 proprietor built or restored for his own residence the mansion 

 called the Ha', Westgate Ha', or Old Castle Ha', which still 

 exhibits on the lintel of the entrance the date 1662, and over 

 the chimney of the great hall, now the kitchen, two shields, 

 oneofhisown(theDouglasarms,)theother of his wife Dame 

 Eachel Skene,t the daughter of Sir James Skene of Halyards, 

 president of the Court of Session. He feued the land on 

 which the village now stands for the erection of liouses and 

 for gardens to such persons as were able to take them, and by 

 degrees the whole site was thus appropriated. Few of the 

 original titles now remain. The earliest extant, date from the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century. The conditions of the 

 feus were, the payment of one merk scots for ewevy particateX 

 of land, with the privilege of a darg or day's casting of peat, 

 afterwards commuted to an assignment of a bit of the com- 

 mon, where the owner might cast his peats at pleasure, and a 

 load of divots or sods from the common loaning for the roofing 

 or repair of the dwelling. These arrangements continued in 

 force till 1835, when by a deed of excamh between the late 

 laird of Cavers and the feuars, the latter renounced their 

 peat rights on Ruberslaw for an extension of their garden 

 lands, which nearly doubled the original plots and gave rise 

 to the distinction between "the auld and new yairds." The 

 Tillagers were further entitled to graze their cows on the scanty 

 pasture of the common land and on the river haughs, and 

 they cultivated strips of the loaning on the east of the village 

 with various crops, in the same manner as the riband hus- 

 bandry still subsisting in the Highlands. They also raised 



* A detailed list of the places destroyed in this raid is preserved among the 

 Burleigh Papers, in which are specified " on the River Teviot (among others) 

 East Barnehill, Mynto Crag, Mynto towne and place, West Mynto, the'Cragge- 

 end * * Hassington (Hassendean) * * Esshe banke, Cavers, Bryer 

 yards, Denhome, &c.;" and "on the water of Rowle; Rowle, Spittal, Bedrowle, 

 Rowlewood, the Wolles, (Wells), &c." Ibid 277. 



t These were covered with paper when visited by the club, but the landlady 

 obligingly tore it offthe lady's shield, which exhibitedS wolves heads, 2 and 1, with 

 a sword fesswise between them, and the letters D. R. S. above and on either side. 



J About a rood. 



