Drumelzier
Encyclopedia
River Tweed
The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is long and flows primarily through the Borders region of Great Britain. It rises on Tweedsmuir at Tweed's Well near where the Clyde, draining northwest, and the Annan draining south also rise. "Annan, Tweed and Clyde rise oot the ae hillside" as the Border saying...
in the Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
Borders
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...
.
The area of the village is extensive and includes the settlements of Wrae
Wrae Tower
Wrae Tower is a ruined 16th century stone tower house, located in the upper Tweed Valley in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, and similarly south of the village of Broughton. The ruin is at grid reference , 3km south-west of Drumelzier. Only a fragment of the north-east corner stair tower,...
, Stanhope
Stanhope, Peeblesshire
Stanhope is a small settlement in the Scottish Borders region. It is situated in the parish of Drumelzier in Peeblesshire, in the valley of the River Tweed....
, Mossfennan
Mossfennan
Mossfennan is a small settlement in southern Scotland near Drumelzier in the Scottish Borders, in the valley of the River Tweed.Mossfennan is a wooded area part of the parish of Glenholm. There was once a peel tower at Mossfennan. Also near Mossfennan are the remains of a Bronze age burial cairn...
and Kingledoors
Kingledoors
Kingledoors is a group of settlements in a valley in southern Scotland near Tweedsmuir in the Scottish Borders, in the valley of the River Tweed...
. To the north is Broughton
Broughton, Tweeddale
Broughton is a village in Tweeddale in the Scottish Borders. Towns and villages nearby include Biggar, Drumelzier, Kilbucho, and Peebles.The village has a post office, village store, bowling green, tennis courts, a village hall, petrol station and garage, and an art gallery...
and to the south the road passes Crook Inn
Crook Inn
The Crook Inn is an inn in the Scottish Borders, near the village of Tweedsmuir on the A701 road between Broughton and Moffat. It is one of many claimants to be the oldest inn in Scotland. Robert Burns wrote "Willie Wastle's Wife" there. In the early 20th century a halt was built on the Talla...
to Tweedsmuir
Tweedsmuir
The village of Tweedsmuir is a village and civil parish situated from the source of the River Tweed, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland....
.The Drumelzier or Powsail Burn runs by here, and is a tributary of the River Tweed
River Tweed
The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is long and flows primarily through the Borders region of Great Britain. It rises on Tweedsmuir at Tweed's Well near where the Clyde, draining northwest, and the Annan draining south also rise. "Annan, Tweed and Clyde rise oot the ae hillside" as the Border saying...
. Stobo Castle
Stobo Castle
Stobo Castle is located at Stobo in the Scottish Borders, in the former county of Peeblesshire. The Manor of Stobo was originally owned by the Balfour family. It became the family seat of the Graham-Montgomery Baronets from 1767. The building of the present castle began in 1805 and was completed in...
hotel and health spa are in the area, as is Dawyck Botanic Garden
Dawyck Botanic Garden
Dawyck Botanic Garden is a botanic garden and arboretum covering 25 ha at Stobo on the B712, 8 miles south of Peebles in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland, OS ref. NT168352...
, one of three "Regional Gardens" of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Originally founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland — Edinburgh,...
.
Name
The name is recorded as Dunmedler (circa 1200); Dumelliare (1305); Drummeiller (1326); Drummelzare (1492) and Drummelzier (1790). The name may derive from the Gaelic for 'bare hill'.Drumelzier
The village takes its name from Drumelzier Castle, located hard by the River Tweed not far from the village centre. It was the ancient seat of the Tweedie family, first chartered to Roger de Twydyn about 1320. It was also part of a chain of peel towerPeel tower
Peel towers are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, intended as watch towers where signal fires could be lit by the garrison to warn of approaching danger...
s along the Tweed Valley. The ruins of the old house are now in the midst of modern farm buildings, which have been built largely of stone salvaged from it. The fortunes of the Tweedie family declined, and in 1633 the last Tweedie of Drummelzier was forced to sell the Barony of Drummelzier to Lord Hay of Yester. The present Laird of Drumelzier is Alexander Hay of Duns
Duns
Duns is the county town of the historic county of Berwickshire, within the Scottish Borders.-Early history:Duns law, the original site of the town of Duns, has the remains of an Iron Age hillfort at its summit...
and Drumelzier, he resides at Duns Castle
Duns Castle
Duns Castle, Duns, Berwickshire is a historic house in Scotland, the oldest part of which, the massive Norman Keep or Pele Tower, dates from 1320. The earlier house was transformed into a Gothic castle, 1818–22, by architect James Gillespie Graham. It is owned by the current Laird, Alexander Hay of...
, Berwickshire
Berwickshire
Berwickshire or the County of Berwick is a registration county, a committee area of the Scottish Borders Council, and a lieutenancy area of Scotland, on the border with England. The town after which it is named—Berwick-upon-Tweed—was lost by Scotland to England in 1482...
.
The Castle was abandoned and as a ruin became a convenient quarry for building stone for the farm its ruins now stand in; the square south tower stood at its original height as late as 1972. The remains have since been mainly demolished and the site cleared on the grounds of safety; only the rubble-filled stump of the tower now remains.
Tinnis
Above the village is a distinctive conical hill, known as 'Tennis, Tinnis or Tinnie's Castle', a name derived from 'Thanes Castle'. Only a few walls of the old fortalice remained when it was visited by Francis GroseFrancis Grose
Francis Grose was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He was born at his father's house in Broad Street, St-Peter-le-Poer, London, son of a Swiss immigrant and jeweller, Francis Jacob Grose , and his wife, Anne , daughter of Thomas Bennett of Greenford in Middlesex...
in 1790; it was used as a redoubt or citadel by the Lords of Tweedie and passed to the Hays family by marriage.
James VI may have ordered its demolition in 1592. The castle probably dates from the late 15th or early 16th centuries and may have been built by the Tweedies of nearby Drumelzier. The remains indicate a rectangular castle with curtain-walls that enclosed a courtyard with a tower-house at the south corner; circular towers were located at the north and west angles.
It is also thought possible that Tinnis Castle was blown up by Lord Fleming, whose father John, 2nd Lord Fleming was murdered by Tweedie of Drumelzier in 1524 as part of a longstanding feud between the two families.
Merlin and Drumelzier
It is said that it was here, that Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, was imprisoned by Morgan la Fay, in a tree. Many historical sites can be found in the area, from Bronze ageBronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
forts, to medieval casts.
'Myrddin Wyllt
Myrddin Wyllt
Myrddin Wyllt , Merlinus Caledonensis or Merlin Sylvestris is a figure in medieval Welsh legend, known as a prophet and a madman...
', 'Merlinus Caledonensis' or 'Merlin Sylvestris' (c. 540 - c. 584) is a Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
figure in medieval legends, regarded as a prophet, madman, pagan and a prototype for today's composite representation of the Merlin
Merlin
Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...
of Arthurian legend.He was said to be born in Carmathen South Wales, where the town in Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
- Caerfyrddin was named after him, Caer meaning town, Fyrddin after Myrddin. Stories of the life of Myrddin Wyllt can be found in the Black Book of Carmarthen
Black Book of Carmarthen
The Black Book of Carmarthen is thought to be the earliest surviving manuscript written entirely or substantially in Welsh. Written in around 1250, the book's name comes from its association with the Priory of St. John the Evangelist and Teulyddog at Carmarthen, and is referred to as black due to...
written 1250ad, in a Brythonic celtic language. In Welsh tradition of his life he is said to be a wild man of the woods, prophet and Bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...
as written in Vita Merlini
Vita Merlini
Vita Merlini, or The Life of Merlin, is a work by the Norman-Welsh author Geoffrey of Monmouth, composed in Latin around AD 1150. It retells incidents from the life of the Brythonic seer Merlin, and is based on traditional material about him....
1150ad.
Merlin Sylvestris was baptised and thus converted to Christianity by Saint Kentigern at the 'altarstone' near the village and is said to have died through his 'three deaths' here also.. Legend has it that he prophesized his own death of falling, drowning and stabbing. It is said that he was chased off a cliff by sheppards where he tripped and fell, impaled himself on a fishing rod on the sea bed and died with his head under the water.
Pennicuick in 1715 states that Merlin was buried a little below the churchyard at the side of the Powsail Burn. Richard Brown, a minister of the parish, showed Pennicuick the exact spot, marked by a thorn tree. A prophecy is stated :
"When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin's grave, Scotland and England shall one monarch have. |
The very day that James VI of Scotland and I of England was crowned the prophecy was fulfilled, with the River Tweed bursting its banks and meeting with the Powsail Burn at Merlin's Grave, something it had not done before and has not done since.
The Tweed river spirit
Celtic beliefs included the existence of river spirits and the need to appease them with sacrifices.Tweed said to Till, 'What gars ye rin so still?' Till said to Tweed, 'Though ye rin wi' speed, And I rin so slaw, Yet where ye droun ae man, I droun twa!'. |
The Tweed is wide and shallow, whilst the nearby Till is deep and narrow.
A local tradition tells of a Baron of Drumelzier returning from a long involvement in the Crusades to find his wife nursing a baby. The wife explained that one day she had been walking beside the Tweed when the river spirit appeared and ravished her. The Baron appears to have accepted the explanation; however, less convinced locals applied the nickname 'Tweedie' to the child, who became Baron Drumelzier. The family name of the Barons was Tweedie. One of the Merovingian Kings of France was supposedly conceived under similar circumstances.
Micro history
As late as 1598, on the first day of May, the parishioners built BeltaneBeltane
Beltane or Beltaine is the anglicised spelling of Old Irish Beltaine or Beltine , the Gaelic name for either the month of May or the festival that takes place on the first day of May.Bealtaine was historically a Gaelic festival celebrated in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.Bealtaine...
fires on the local hills. On this date several parishioners were put on trial by the kirk session for carrying out this pagan act.
Sources
- Grose, Francis (1797). The Antiquities of Scotland. High Holborn : Hooper and Wigstead. V. 2.
- Groome, Francis H. (1903). Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland. V. 1. London : Caxton Publishing Company.
- Johnston, J. B. (1903). Place-names of Scotland. Edinburgh : David Douglas.
- Love, Dane (1989). Scottish Kirkyards. London : Robert Hale. ISBN 0-7090-3667-1.
- Seymour, Camilla and Randall, John (2007). Stobo Kirk. A Guide to the Building and its History. Peebles : John Randall.
- Westwood, Jennifer (1985). Albion. A Guide to Legendary Britian. London : Grafton Books. ISBN 0-246-11789-3.