|
Regarding your items in
the Craigie column about JW and ED on lintel stones and the
similarity of farmhouses and cottages round Arbroath. This all
relates to Panmure Estate. The carved lintels stones on
farmhouses, cottages and steadings are not in fact builders'
initials but rather stand for John William (Ramsay) Earl of
Dalhousie and carry a date in the 1880's. Some other houses and
steadings carry stones marked FM <date> ED and this stands
for Fox Maule, Earl of Dalhousie with a date in the 1870's.
Panmure Estate undertook a major reconstruction of its buildings
at this time and the farmhouses seem to be variations on 3 basic
designs. One single storey design for the small farms, a
one-and-a-half storey 'L' design for the medium farms and a two
storey 'L' design for the larger farms. Likewise there seem to
have been 3 basic designs of cottages i.e. detached single
storey grieves' houses, terraced single storey horsemen's houses
and two room bothies. All would have had a dry outside
privy and an attached pig-sty. Most of these cottages are now
substantially altered, with most having been 'modernised' under
agricultural grant schemes in the 1950's and 1960's.
For the history of all
this, the reader has to go back to 1787 when the estates and
titles of Panmure in Angus, and Dalhousie in Midlothian, passed
to the Honourable William Ramsay who subsequently took the name
and arms of Maule of Panmure. He was by all accounts a bit of a
'character' and was popular with his tenants who in 1839 erected
a stone column testimonial to him on
Downie Hill, which was also known as the 'Live and Let Live
Testimonial' because the earl was a very easy going landlord (read
here). The estate during these years had very
little investment and when his son, Fox Maule,
inherited, he had to set about the rebuilding of the houses and
steadings on Panmure Estate.
Fox Maule, second Baron
Panmure and eleventh Earl of Dalhousie, was born in 1801, and
had a substantial career in politics, being Member of Parliament
(in London) for the (constituency)
of Perthshire, and later the Elgin Burghs, and the Burgh of
Perth. He is best remembered for being appointed Secretary at
War by Lord Palmerston and sorting out the shocking unsanitary
conditions and lack of clothing and fighting equipment that the
army faced in the Crimea. He was also a great supporter of
the Free Kirk after the 1843
disruption.
Fox inherited the estates
on the death of his father in 1852, but it was not until the
overthrow of Palmerston's administration in 1858 that he was
able to start improvements to his estates. Unfortunately, he did
not achieve a great deal of improvement in his lifetime as he
died, unmarried, in 1874. The estates subsequently passed to a
nephew, Admiral George Ramsay who was born at Kelly (near
Arbroath) in 1805. Earl George took up the work of improving the
estates, but he died suddenly in 1880 and the estates passed to
his son John William Ramsay.
John William Ramsay, the
thirteenth Earl of Dalhousie, was, like his father, a naval man,
but he later shocked all his family by putting up for Parliament
as a Liberal and an adherent of Gladstone. He became one of the
Members of Parliament (in London)
for Liverpool (constituency).
He was the man who was the
great builder and improver of Panmure, and between 1880 and
November 1887 when he died, he was said to have spent £150,000
on new buildings and other improvements. That was, of course, a
lot of money in those days and that money would have been from
the revenues from coal mining on the Dalhousie Estates in
Midlothian.
On the subject of a
reference book on farm buildings, I can recommend "The
Rural Architecture of Scotland" by Alexander Fenton and
Bruce Walker John Donald 1981. For earlier buildings,
"Husbandry of Scotland" by Sir John Sinclair, 1813 and
"A General View of the Agriculture of the County
of Angus" by the Rev. James Headrick. 1813.
|
