2 Anniversary Address. 



In addition to its physical investigations, our Club has, 

 of recent years, taken an increasing and lively interest 

 touching everything connected with the History of our 

 Borderland. So I have been tempted to narrate to you 

 to-day The Early History of Stichill, ending with 

 the year 1627, when the Gordons sold the ancient 

 inheritance of their family, and closed their connection 

 with the Borders. 



It will only be a picture of parochial or village 

 history. Yet it is a lens through which we may read 

 a small part of our nation's history, or perchance learn 

 to know ourselves. 



Stichill Parish is situated in Roxburghshire, about three 

 miles north from Kelso. As may be surmised from its name, 

 it occupies an u[)land slope. Somner, in his Dictionary, renders 

 the Anglo-Saxon ' Stichele ' into Arduus, acclivis, praeruptus, 

 steep, high, dangerous to get upon, unaccessible . Various indications 

 of its occupation by Celtic tribes still remain. Sweethope Hill 

 has been unmistakeably crowned by a fort. Lines of earthen 

 circumvallation, traces of a hollow way, and foundations of hut 

 circles may be discerned upon its surface. During this summer 

 two short cists of the usual pre-Christian type were discovered 

 in Stichill village, at the eastern end of the new houses. In 

 one were the calcined remains of a youth. No weapons or arms 

 were seen. A jointed collar of late Celtic work, which was 

 recovered from the Cowpark well in 1782, was presented by Sir 

 James Pringle to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of 

 Scotland. Bishop Pococke, in his Tour through Scotland in 

 1760, dined at Stichill House, and there saw other articles which 

 had been found at the same place. ^ These circumstances lend 

 colour to the supposition that late Celtic tribes, (the Ottadeni 

 probably), lived in this territory. 



Thereafter, it shared the fate of the Lowlands. The Eomans 

 included it in the province of 'Bernicia.' The Saxons, who 

 settled in the room of the Eomanised Britons, named it 

 ' Saxonia.' When Malcolm, in 1020, obtained the territory 

 between the rivers Tweed and Forth, it was already known as 



1 Bishop Pococke' s Tours through Scotland in 1760, p. 330. 



