175 



Memorials and Reminiscences of the Parish of HohJcirk. 

 By Walter Deans, Hobkirk. 



Un THANK. 



Some learned etymologists are of opinion that the word 

 Unthank indicates poor soil, or perhaps the abode of a 

 squatter or persons who have occupied the land without the 

 permission of the proprietor, but I am more inclined to think 

 that the word is descriptive of the locality and situation. 

 Une is the Scots for oven. Thanh is probably a corruption 

 of shank, tail, or terminus. The word Unthank exists in 

 several localities in the Border districts. Unthank is the 

 name of a farm and old buryiny;' ground in Ewesdale. There 

 is also a place in Liddesdale called Une Shank ; the word 

 shanh is applied in the Border districts to the tail of 

 a small hill or rising ground, when bounded by a valley or 

 cleugh on each side — thus the lands of Unthank, in Hobkirk 

 parish, are bounded by the deep Soneshiell cleugh on the 

 north-west and the Rule on the south-east, gradually arising 

 from the shank or point at Hobkirk Manse and extending 

 in a circular form to the flat une or table-land at the 

 place of Unthank ; and the Unthank on Ewes has the same 

 situation, the Ewes on one side and the Unthank burn on 

 the other; and Oven Shank, in Liddesdale, has the same 

 situation; and also the netlier end of the Brough hill, on 

 Allan Water, is called the Shank foot ; Shankend, on 

 Slitterick, is similar. 



Unthank, in former times, appears to have been a surname. 



In 1471 one Thomas Unthank was a notary public and 

 witness to a charter confirming Walter Kerr in the lands of 

 Hindhope. Unthank was formerly a small estate on the left 

 bank of the Rule, stretching from the east side of the 

 Soneshiell cleugh to Forkins, where Catlaw Water and the 

 Harwood burn meet to form the Rule, at a quarter of a 

 mile above the church of Hobkirk ; the extent of the lands 

 probably did not exceed 50 acres. 



At the Reformation the teind sheaves of Unthank were 

 valued at 1 boll, and were held by the Earl of Lothian ; the 

 estate appears at an early period to have been a possession 

 of a branch of the Turnbulls. In 1516 Leo. Turnbull of 



