Report of Meetings for 1888. By J. Hardy. 173 



the Wandy House and Rimside burns that remain unexplored • 

 also a plot of ashen wood called the Bottle Wood, which Wide- 

 hope letch traverses, which has its source near the Black Lough. 

 Not far above it, and adjoining the public road, are the 

 Senna Wells of salubrious notoriety. Passing to the eastward 

 the road crosses the Swinhope Letch, winding its way through 

 birchen groves. It obtained its name, which points to a past age, 

 from the herds of swine that we know from the Pipe Rolls were 

 kept in the woods by the ancient villagers of Edlingham. Then 

 the Corbie or Raven Letch is passed, on which are a romantic 

 crag and water-fall. Instead of the Raven, the Rock-dove, or 

 Wild Domestic Pigeon, now nestles there. Among the trees 

 above the bridge the Grey Flycatcher has its summer home, but 

 their chief warbler is the Chaffinch. Higher up near the moor 

 edge are some old borings for coal. At about the height of 671 

 feet, before reaching the Pit-houses, we turn down the bank to 

 Lemmington, alongside an old fir plantation in which much good 

 timber had been prostrated in the 1881 gales, it being much 

 exposed. Before Lemmington was reached, the company were 

 almost prepared to depart. There were some fine trees once in 

 the park, many of which had succumbed to violent winds. The 

 height is about 300 feet. 



The chief point of attraction from an antiquarian point of view 

 in the place is the old peel tower, which was incorporated with 

 the modern hall. The Secretary then read a paper on Lemmington, 

 whence it appeared that it was held of the Cospatrick or Beanley 

 barony, by a race of native owners, without surnames, except 

 that they were the sons of their fathers. This primitive mode of 

 distinguishing each other, they had abandoned in the reign of 

 Edward I., when they had assumed the name of their possession 

 which was then Lemokston. The name is as old as the age of 

 Henry III. or even earlier. It was possible that Lemoc was the 

 first settler who left his name attached to the lands he had cleared 

 from the waste. Be this as it may, one of the Lemokstons was 

 honoured with burial in Melrose Abbey, and another was Rector 

 or Parson of Duns, and a leading witness in charters of the Earl 

 Patrick of the period, who was doubtless the patron of his 

 Northumbrian retainers, the Lemokstons. Afterwards Lemming- 

 ton was annexed to Edlingham manor under the De Feltons and 

 the De Hastings, and was then acquired by the Beadnells, who 

 profited by being Church Commissioners at the downfall of the 



