History of the village
The story of Midlem
by Walter Elliot
'The Story of Midlem', from 'Walter's Tales of the Borders', was written by Walter Elliot and published in the Southern Reporter sometime in the 1980s.
The Story of Midlem
An interesting place, Midlem - it has the history of the last thousand years written into it... if you know how to read the land.
To start as far back as possible; the Romans knew the area, since a temporary Roman camp has recently been discovered at Milrighall. This might simply have been a practice camp of Roman troops on patrol, but it could also have been a more permanent hunting camp.
Last century, the skull of 'bos longifrons' (the wild cattle of the area), was found in Whitmuir Loch while it was being drained for marle. In it was embedded a Roman javelin head.
However, the more visible remains of Midlem's past appeared when the Anglian invaders from Northumbria came into the area around about 750 A.D.
On a warm, south-facing slope, they built their houses in the shape of an elongated triangle and called the settlement Middel-ham, the hamlet in the middle - presumably because there was another on either side.
As was the Anglian custom, the householder owned his house and a large garden behind it, but the rest of the land around the village was held in common by the whole community.
Each householder, husbandman or cottar, was allowed a number of fields to cultivate. In the Middle Ages, a Midlem husbandman held about 26 acres, while a cottar's holding varied from one to 10 acres.
The Anglians introduced a new methods of tilling the soil. A team of oxen was used to pull the large, heavy plough. This was an early farming co-operative, for the plough was owned by the community but the oxen were contributed by the husbandman (who each owned two). The plough team comprised between eight and ten oxen.
Ballot
The result of this method of ploughing was long, narrow field strips with a slight turn at the end. Until the demands of modern agriculture, you could still see this 1,000 year old tillage in the Midlem rigs.
Now the cultivator did not own this land, and there was a yearly (or sometimes three yearly) ballot to determine which householder got which fields; a good draw could mean the difference between a full belly or near starvation during winter.
This ballot system seems to have been frozen probably around 1800, for when the Henderson family bought Joan's Cottage in the late 1940s, they also got four fields.
These fields were not ajoining but scattered in different parts of what had been the Anglian lands of a thousand years before. I think they also got the right to graze two or three geese in the green at the centre of the village.
The first documentary mention of the village appears in the David 1 Charter of 1119AD, giving 'the town of Middelham and of Bothendeanham (Bowden) and Aldona (Eildon) just as I posses them in lands, waters, woods and cleared ground' to the recently founded Selkirk Abbey.
When Selkrik Abbey was moved to Kelso seven years later, the lands of Midlem remained in the hands of the Abbot there, and did so for another 450 years. The Kelso Abbey rental roll of 1567 shows that Mydlyne, 37 men and 7 women held land as tenants of the Abbey.
Somewhere during this period, probably around 1300, the Knights Templar aquired or were given land on the outskirts of the village.
Dissent
The Knights Templar - who had been expelled from every country in Europe except Scotland - were reputer to have helped Robert the Bruce win the Battle of Bannockburn. There is no record of this transfer, but the name Temple Hall commemorates their presence and what appears on the map as Friarshawmuir, is or used to be known as Jerusalem.
After the Reformation, the Earl of Roxburghe had managed to 'acquire' much of the Kelso Abbey lands, including Midlem. However, it was some 70 years later, in 1643, that the feuars of Midlem were confirmed in their rights as 'native and kindly tenants and proprietors'.
The 32 husbandlands of Midlem were valued at £1055 Scots.
In 1739, the minister of the joint parish of Bowden and Midlem had died. The Duke of Roxburghe as principal heritor, nominated a Mr Hume for the post, but a large number of parishoners disagreed. This dissent was centred in Midlem, and resulted because ' they were not satisfied with his sermons'.
After much debate, Mr Hume was inducted while a troop of dragoons, who just happened to be in the area, stood by to 'keep the peace if required'.
The dissenters of Midlem took their only option - they seceded and formed their own Secession Kirk in the village. Although this decision was taken in 1742, it was not until 1746 that they built their own meeting house.
Small though it was, the Secession Kirk of Midlem had influence beyond its immediate area. In 1754, the Rev. Andrew Amot of Midlem went with a colleague to America to found the first Associate Presbytery there.
In 1758, a dispute over taking the burgess oath resulted in the Midlem Seceders splitting into the Burghers and the Anti-burghers. The Burghers formed their own Secession Kirk in Selkirk, which became the Lawson Memorial Kirk and now the Parish Kirk.
Unadorned
It was from this base that the Rev. Dr George Lawson ran his Ecclesiastical College for 30 years. In 1796, the Rev. Robert Armstrong, a Midlem man, was sent to Kentucky and eventually settled in Ohio in 1804.
The meeting house building was closed for worship in 1938, and was knocked down some 40 years later. A photograph taken in the early years of the 20th century shows that this 'Auld Lichts Kirk' was a very functional and unadorned building.
It spent its final years as a store and garage, and it is one of my regrets that I did not think to take some photographs of its bare interior before its demolition.
vILLAGE hISTORY
by A.D. Bulman May 1992
The village of Midlem has a long history documented from the early 12th century, and reasonably established before that.
In 1864 a Mr A. Jeffrey wrote ‘The History of Antiquities of Roxburghshire’ in which he tells us that originally Midlem was called Middleham, a Saxon name dating from the 5th Century. Indeed the village is laid out in a typically Saxon form. Saxons were imported by the Romans to work the land before the Saxon invasions that followed the Roman withdrawal.
It is on record that in 1119 Prince David, later David 1st of Scotland (1124 – 1153) gave 754 acres of land in Middleham to the monks he intended to settle in Selkirk Abbey. In fact, Selkirk Abbey did not survive, so these monks were moved to Kelso Abbey in 1126. From that time until the end of the 16th Century the village was an outpost of the Abbots of Kelso (Melrose Abbey was dedicated in 1136 and Bowden Kirk dates from 1128).
Middleham consisted of eleven cottages with nine acres each, called rigs. There was a brew house and a mill, hence Millrig Hall. The width of a rig was dictated by the turning circle hauled by a pair of oxen.
Existing records show that in 1160 John, Abbot of Kelso, granted 52 acres of land in the village to one of his men called Osborne; in 1260 Alan de Sarcines and Christina his wife possessed a heritage of 26 acres in Middleham, and in 1567 the value of land in Middleham is stated at £32.
Husbandmen of Middleham had right of common pasture over Selkirk Common, but after 1681 this right was confined within marches laid down in agreement with the Burghers of Selkirk, this was continued until the mid 18th century when the land was divided again among the Feuars. The Landlord then being the Earl of Roxburghe, later Duke of Roxburghe.
There were a number of strong houses for defence in the village with 4ft thick walls, the last of these were taken down in 1861 but a tower remained at the bottom of the village until some 30 years ago, hence Castle Terrace.
Mr James Sword, a landowner in Midlem, who in 1820 erected the cairn in front of Houdshall to mark the limit of the common land for the use of the Feurs, told Mr Jeffrey in 1864 that he had known five of the bastille houses.
There was a meeting in the village belonging to the Associated Synod of Original Seceders (the Kirk) and a school which in 1864 had 45 pupils. The Kirk was in use until 1938 and must have been built together with the Manse in 1746. The seccessionests broke away from the established church in 1740. The first Minister in Midlem Patrick Matthew who was inducted in May 1742. His successor, the Reverend Andrew Arnot, was sent to America in 1754 where he originated the first Associated Presbytery in the Colony. He returned the following year.
The Kirk was knocked down in 1971 but the school and Manse are still there. The Smithy was built around the same time as the Kirk.
Midlem occupies a high situation 680ft above sea level, yet is well sheltered from the West and North. It commands extensive views to the East and South of all the district lying between it and the Cheviot Hills.
It is important to realise that there were no paved roads in the Borders, except the Roman road, until 1794 but the first Selkirk to Jedburgh coach road built in 1760 went through Midlem, as did the early 12th Century tracks. In 1785 a journey from Langholm to Hawick (22 miles) took eight hours in a carriage with two horses. In 1771 Edinburgh to Newcastle took two days travelling at about 5mph. The advent of the railways revolutionised this situation.
Midlem has been a centre of husbandry since Roman times and enjoyed a long period of agricultural development under the Abbots of Kelso. It seemed to avoid the worst of the depredations of the Reformation and the Border Reiver raiding in the 15th and 16th Centuries.
It has remained a small delightful hamlet perhaps because the railways could not reach it. Queen Mary (George V Consort) when staying in the Borders used to visit Midlem to enjoy the view.
The Village Hall was erected in 1932 on ground presented by General Jardine, and was then and still is financed by the efforts of the village.
Explore the history of individual houses
Through extensive local research, Midlem resident Grace Belle Scott has compiled an exhaustive historical record of every house in the village. She has lovingly compiled this information in three printed volumes which there are a number of copies of in the village.
In the coming weeks we aim to put this historic information on individual houses on this webpage (but not information on any current residents).
We are keen to first listen to views in the village about whether residents would welcome having this historic information online.
