64 EEPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1896 



position of Lord of Liddesdale, he took part in the muster 

 of a Scottish army at Southdean, where a small party 

 under his command were detached and made a rapid advance 

 to Durham and Newcastle, which he attacked, and under 

 the walls of which he defeated Percy in single combat, 

 and carried off these trophies which the English leader 

 failed to re-capture at Otterburn, before which town 

 Douglas lingered, to allow him the opportunity, and where 

 the Scottish leader fell and the Percy was made prisoner 

 ia the battle which ensued. The standard of Douglas 

 and the gauntlets taken from Percy were brought back 

 by his son, Archibald Douglas, the founder of the Cavers 

 branch of the family. Cavers House has been so much 

 added to and altered at various dates that its original form 

 can hardly now be recognised. Dr Murray, in a paper read 

 before the Hawick Archaeological Society in 1863, says — 

 " Thus Cavers House presents the remains of five different 

 periods of building ; the few traces of the Cavers 

 of the Baliols ; the tower of the Wardens of the Middle 

 Marches ; the mansion of the Sheriffs of Teviotdale at the 

 time of the Union ; the Italianised composition of a century 

 ago; and extensions of later date." 



CAVERS CHURCH. 



The age of Cavers Old Church is not known, the date 

 (1663) above one of the doorways marking only the epoch 

 of some repairs. It was originally in the form of a Latin 

 cross, the base being formed by the vaults of the Cavers 

 family, while the arms or the transepts were formed by 

 the aisles of Stobs and Gladstaines, but when the latter 

 familj' became extinct in the district in the course of last 

 century, the heritors pulled down their aisle, thus destroying 

 the symmetry of the building as well as robbing it of its 

 ancestral memories. The ancient village or town of Cavers 

 mentioned in Border history, and which was burnt down 

 by Lord Dacre in 1535, extended from the present houses 

 near the church to near the junction of the avenue with 

 the new church road ; the square or market place, in the 

 centre of which the village cross still stands, was at the 

 end near the church, and tradition states that the size of 

 Cavers was so considerable that it contained at one time 

 no fewer than nine inns or public-houses. 



