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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Dumfriesshire => Topic started by: Maggie1895 on Sunday 28 March 10 21:01 BST (UK)
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I know this is a long shot, and expect the answer to be that I need to go to Dumfriesshire when the libraries are open, but just wondered if anyone has any maps or information on any of these places in the area of Johnstonbridge.
I'm assuming they are all addresses, possibly farms, maybe just areas:
Auchdenningfoot
Blinburn
Heatheryhall or Heatherie Hall
Pleasuregate
Skemrigg / Skemrigghead
and also Johnston Mill. This was a water mill, and I'm pretty sure that it was somewhere between the old churchyard and what is now the Annandale services on the other side of the M.74, by the river (well it would be by the river, considering it was a watermill)
Also, for anyone with a family interest in the old churchyard in Johnstonbridge, I was there on my way home the other Sunday and the old church is boarded up but there is no sign that it has yet been sold. A couple of years ago whilst passing through I met a would be purchaser who assured me that family would always be welcome ito visit the churchyard even when it was his garden. Some garden, gravestones and a lot of mowing! It doesn't look as if that purchase had gone through.
Any help appreciated but I'm not expecting miracles. I supposed I've been motivated by a posting on another board this morning that produced a photo of the close in question in Greenock, so putting this on in the spirit of "if you don't ask"...
Thanks for reading
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The National Library for Scotland has a plethora of maps .
I'd suggest - especially as you appear to know the area you're looking for of going to:
http://geo.nls.uk/os6inch/google.html
It's a zoomable map - 6 ins to the mile. When you get closer to what you're looking for, change to the historical overlay. Play around with it. it's a useful tool.
Apologies but am at work, so don't have time to look myself.
Regards, Steve
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Johnstone Community Council produced a collection of old photos of Johnstone parish in 2000 but the originals have been lost (or stolen) and tthey would be really appreciative if anyone had any photos at all of Johnstone parish.
From memory there were no pictures of the above properties all of which are no longer standing apart from the mill of which photos do exist.
Heres hoping
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I should really read the original post before I reply!! skemrigghead farm is still very much standing and Pleasuregate is still there but unlived in - it has a new house built in its grounds.
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Maggie, I'm sure that it will only be the church building that will be sold. The burial ground will remain the responsibility of the local council and right of access will always be maintained.
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Thank you all so much! Like Steve, I was stuck at work rather longer than I'd hoped today so sorry it's taken a while to log back in.
First Steve, no I didn't know about those maps and the historical overlay - brilliant, thank you very much.
Kama, I know we are very long distance connections, and thanks for telling me about the mill photos. Any idea where they might be found? Presumably a Dumfriesshire library collection? When I was in the churchyard I was looking at the very individual gravestone for John Johnston, first husband of our mutual 3.gr grandmother Jean Ritchie, and his sad death, presumably along with his horse, in a 'speat' in the river. I expect you are familiar with it, but if you're not happy to send you the words.
Sancti, thanks. I realise the churchyard will stay and will be available, but it just seems so sad to see an old church boarded up like that. Still, I suppose it's better than what's happened to the other side of the family at Wellwynd in Aidrie. I hope someone with the imagination to love it buys it eventually and it doesn't become an office or warehouse or something like that.
Thank you all again - much appreciated.
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I just wanted to say a bigger THANK YOU again - just been playing on the historical maps Steve directed me to. Fantastic!!!
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Thanks very much :O)
Another site, which will sometimes help you locate as you can search by name is:
http://www.old-maps.co.uk/
You can find an old address and save the image you want without having to part with any spondoolix. Regards, Steve :)
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Thanks Steve - only just seen your second posting. I'll certainly look at that one as well- I'm already very impressed with the first link.
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Hello again maggie 1895
This will be my last post on this thread. A good photo link is below - you never know your luck.
Regards, Steve
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/849081
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Thanks once again Steve! Good photo - some of my family's gravestones are shown up ahead in the LH row, towards the larger stone, with my gr.grandparents and the majority of the previous generation just out of shot, on the left.
I'll certainly be keeping that!
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Hi there,
Just to say that the National Library of Scotland site mentioned above has lots of other very good old maps. I have used the Thomson and, I think, Roy maps to find places that don't exist any more as well as the 1845 OS maps.
This site has about 30 photos of Johnstonebridge including the mill: http://www.dgttl.co.uk/ just type in Johnstone in the search box.
Also you might like: http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/ which has loads of info including the Farm Horse Tax pages from 1798!
cheers
Norma
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Norma, thank you so much!
That's the first time I've ever seen a picture of the mill where my great grandmother grew up - her family had it for a couple of generations I think.
It's somewhere familiar to me through family stories but it has always been a source of frustration that although I've become the custodian (also spelt hoarder) of 2 blanket chests full of old family photographs I'd never been able to find a picture of the Mill, and although I was there a lot as a child the Mill had gone by then
I thought I'd been lucky on Google once but it was Johnstone in Renfrewshire, not Johnstonebridge.
'Thank you' seems inadequate. It really does mean a lot to me
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Hi Maggie,
So glad it worked out!
I was wondering if you had any old photos of local farms in that area as I have quite a few generations who lived thereabouts. I don't have all the place names to hand but will find them if necessary.
cheers
norma
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I have just seen the reference to Blinburn. I am descended from William son of John Johnstone and Jean Ritchie born after John drowned in the Annan. A relative in Australia recently received a map from Raehills Estate which shows location of Blinburn but the map is too large to attach
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Farish, isn't it wonderful how we all fall over distant relatives on this site?
I take it you are descended from William Sibbald Johnston, the baby born in April 1807, after John's death? Poor little boy, arriving in the world and not ever meeting his father. There had been an earlier William hadn't there, I think he was born in 1792 and died in 1805. Certainly John and Jean seemed to have a decent sized family.
After John's death, when she eventually married again to John Boyes, they had just the two girls, Jean and Janet. Jean married into the Rogerson family, and that's the line down to me, so I suppose we are half cousins several times removed. I always pause at John's gravestone when I'm in the churchyard because the inscription is so unusual.
Wonderful names their homes had. I would have loved to see the map showing Blinburn, I understand it's long gone, but I believe Pleasuregate still exists? I never managed to find it though. Perhaps we can work out a way to look at the map, or even part of it, one day.
Thank you so much for posting - Maggie
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Thanks for replying Maggie. The map was too large to insert. My ancestor William Sibbald married Elizabeth Renwick and I am descended from the second youngest child Elspeth (called Effie) who was my great grandmother.
If you go to an older map of the area, Blin(d) burn was a row of cottages just below Johnstone Mill and as you go further south down the Annan you would get to Johnstone Cemetery. There was little burn beside which the cottages sat which ran into the Annan. The cottages were gone in maps 1857 -1861
Blinburn/Blindburn was also near the school area on the 1750 map and I think that the school is still on roughly the same site at what is now Johnstonebridge
Johnstone Mill also had links to the Johnstones through Jean Ritchie's second marriage - her daughter married a Rogerson whose first wife was a Mary Johnstone and I often wondered if she too was in our tree somewhere. I don't know who else lived at Blinburn but I have visited the cemetery as our family cottage is in Dumfriesshire and I was born there.
Do you have a copy of the material about John's death in the river from the paper?
farish
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Farish, thank you for explaining where Blinburn was. Last summer when I was down at the churchyard on a fine day I walked up the footpath by the Annan back up towards the village and the area where the Mill was, well as far as I could go, and I probably passed the site of Blinburn cottages without even knowing it. I think I know the burn and as I remember it it does come down hill from roughly opposite the school.
I don't have anything from a newspaper about John Johnston's death, if you have anything from the Dumfriesshire newspaper archives I'd love to hear of it. What I have is what is on his gravestone in the churchyard. (Old Johnstonbridge churchyard) The church is now a family home, oddly enough the home of another member of Rootschat, but thankfully the churchyard and the family graves are still open to us to visit.
John's gravestone reads ""John Johnson, Carter, 27, with his horse and cart was carried down by a Speat (sic) in the River Annan August 25th 1806. His body was found at Jardine Hall."
You are right about the Rogersons and the Mill. That's the family I'm descended from, Jean Boyes and James Rogerson of Johnston Mill. As you say, Jean was the daughter of Jean Ritchie from her second marriage. I have Mary Johnston in my tree as James Rogerson's first wife and the mother of his first family William, Henrietta, John, George and James but I don't have her parents. All I know is that she was born c 1789 in Johnstonbridge, and died on 10 March 1828 when the youngest child, James was only 3. Common name in the area but smaller population and perfectly possible, as you say they could well be linked. If they are, they weren't a particularly lucky family, were they, with her dying young and him being drowned.
Good luck with yours, and if I find anything further my end I'll certainly pass it on
Maggie 1895
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Hello Maggie
I've just seen this posting and noticed the name Heatheryhall. Do you have any connection with Jane Johnstone who married James Dinwoodie?.
Mike
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Mike, Probably not but I'm not sure is the honest answer. I don't, as far as I know, have any direct Johnston / Johnson ancestry - both John and Mary were 'previous marriages' as mentioned above. The Heatheryhall / Heatheriehall / Heatheryhaugh link is not from the Rogersons but from my Paterson side, also in Johnstonebridge, who were at Heatheryhall in the earlier / mid 1800s and were at Auchdenningfoot immediately before.
Dinwoody / Dinwoodie rings bells though not the marriage you mention. Going back on the Rogerson side I have possible parents for James Rogerson b 1736 as James Rogerson and Jean Dinwoody. James snr, Jean and James jnr are all definite, the baptism records show that, what I haven't got as 100% is whether that is 'my' James Rogerson's birth or if there were 2 James Rogersons born and baptised in the area about the same time.
Not sure if that helps or just clouds the issue even further!
Maggie
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Maggie thanks for reply. I Googled Johnstonebridge etc and found myself on the actual 1818 bridge built by Telford. There was a letter from Raehills Estate and I had thought the cottages were more towards the M74 but what the letter is actually saying is that the cottages are just before Telfords bridge on the right hand side of the road as you are going north - today there are several houses there but you cannot see the stream. Since the bridge was not built when John drowned the spot was meant to be near his home so assume in that area where bridge is now. There is a big pool there called the Blae Pool.
dumfriesshire weekly journal 9/9/1806
obituaries
on the evening of the 25th ult. john johnstone carrier from edinburgh while returning from lockerby to his home at blindburn with his horse and cart was unfortunately lost in the river annan near his own house -the cart body was thrown out near applegirth manse and the horse at shillyhill (shillahill or sheila hill). daily search was made by multitudes for his body; and it was found near to jardine hall on the 3rd inst. he was respected as an honest man
Farish
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Hullo Mike - saw your posting and Jane Johnstone married to James Dinwoodie as one of the 13 children of William Sibbald Johnstone and his wife Elizabeth Renwick. My great grandmother Effie was no 12. In that family there were several Johnstone x Dinwoodie marriages.
farish
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Thanks for replying Maggie
Jane Dinwoodie (Johnstone) was living in Heatheryhall in 1901 and James Dinwoodie died there in 1888.
Thanks for the reply Farish
James Dinwoodie was a younger brother of my gt gt grandmother Jane and their parents were David Dinwoodie & Agnes Carruthers and they lived at Brae in Johnstone Parish.
I also have another brother David Dinwoodie who married Elizabeth Park Johnstone.
Mike
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Thanks Mike
The Dinwoodies generally known as Dinwoodies of the Brae
David Dinwoodie married Elizabeth Park but most of the family died young and unmarried.
Also though I have not been able to find their marriage certificate to prove,
Agnes Dinwoodie married John Johnstone brother of Jane and Elizabeth. Some of their family were born in Australia according to censuses and one was born in England. John died in Liverpool in 1871 after census was taken and Agnes remarried
and margaret dinwoodie sister of David etc married Herbert Renwick who was the uncle of Jane, John and Elizabeth
farish
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Mike, Farish, thank you both, it's absolutely fascinating reading the different strands.
Mike, Heatherhall sounds as if both our families were there, but yours were later. I understand that the initials JP could be seen carved over the doors of the outbuildings until not that many years ago - James Paterson was a Master Mason and did a lot of building there. By the time your family were there my own strand of the Patersons/Rogersons were just up the road away at Beattock, though they seem to have both been Johnstonebridge for generations prior to that.
Farish, Australia now! Quite stunning how one family can spread and spread across the globe.
Thank you both, I'm certainly going to keep an eye on this thread and if I turn up anything that might interest either of you I'll pass it on
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Maggie 1895,
This is my first post on this site, but I have a suspicion that it may not be my last!
Anyway....travelling back down from Scotland yesterday (21st July 2012), I stopped off at the cottage formerly known as 'Pleasuregate'. (it's now called 'Bonniebraes')
It has been rebuilt in recent years by a husband and wife team who took a gamble where no one else would; they basically saved our ancestors heritage and they should be congratulated for that.
And this is what it looks like today...or yesterday to be precise!
I am, incidentally, related to Jean Ritchie and John Boyes daughter Janet, who married a James Anderson. Their daughter, Jane Anderson (my g,g grandmother) was born at Pleasuregate in 1843.
Kind regards
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Iain2201, you are an absolute star!
Welcome to Rootschat, I hope you find this site as helpful and friendly as I have, no matter what we ask someone out there seems to have the expertise to offer advice or signposting in the right direction.
Thank you so much for the picture of Pleasuregate, now Bonniebraes. Oddly enough I drove north up the M74 on Tuesday 24th, but didn't go into Johnstonebridge this time, just stopped at Kirkpatrick Juxta up the road in Beattock. It's really good to know that the house still survives and is loved, so many of the other houses have gone and are just names now.
Janet Ritchie and James Anderson are on my tree, but only with a note of their marriage in 1834, I hadn't got any details of their family from then on but we must be cousins.
I have Jean Ritchie and John Boyes with just 2 daughters, Jean b 1809 and Janet b 1811. Jean is my gr.gr.grandmother, and you say that Janet is yours, so I think I'd need to sit down with a piece of paper to work out how many times removed cousins that technically makes us!
Thank you again for the picture, and if there's any help I can give you, please ask. You need to make 3 posts on this site before you can use the PM (private message) system but that's only the one you've already make plus 2 more.
Hope we meet up on the site again at some point,
Maggie
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Here is a site that has some old maps of Johnstonebridge in between Moffat and Lockerbie:
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/16439
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I have just found where my husbands G G G Grandparents are buried ,They are in Johnstonebridge Old Cemetery, Archibald Hamilton and Mary Thomson ,plot no 166. I got this plot number from Dumfrieshire Archives , but they couldn`t tell me exactly where it is ,as no survey has been done . We did have a scout around ,but the cemetery is so overgrown, and many of the gravestones are very worn . I wondered if anyone had relatives in this section ,and could point us in the right direction
Many Thanks
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I didn't even know there were Plot Nos. Silly really, I suppose all churchyards have records.
I have a lot of family in Johnstonebridge churchyard and often stop for a wander - and a chat - when I'm on the M74. Boston 14, I'll certainly keep an eye out and if I see your names I'll let you know.
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Maggie,
That would be very good of you , we would really appreciate your help . Good luck !
Regards
Evelyn :)
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Hi. the 'plot' numbers are actually the numbers from the memorial inscription book. Mary Thomson and Archibald Hamilton are in number 116 in the book sold by DGFHS but originally transcribed by Gilchrist & Shannon. There is no map of the gravestones but most are readable although it is now almost 50 years since they were transcribed and some may have been lost over the years.
Dumfries County Council (Now Dumfries & Galloway Regional council) accepted responsibility for the graveyards in 1929. They do hold accurate lair books from that date but pre-1929 is dependant on what they inherited from the Church. It is usually worth asking them although, for me anyway, it is a last resort.
Ian McClumpha
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Hi Ian ,
Thanks for that info.
They didn`t seem to know where these lairs are, it is going to be a bit of footslogging I think . Maggie has very kindly offered to have a look,hopefully she might get lucky .
Evelyn
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Hi Maggie,
Just to let you know we went down to Old Johnstonebridge Cemetery recently and found the gravestone we were looking for,Archibald Hamilton and Mary Thomson . The church building has been bought by a couple who are renovating it ,but they don`t mind folks wandering about to find graves. The chap has cut the long grass down ,it was so high you couldn`t see the inscriptions . We found it in 5 minutes !
Thanks again for your offer.
Boston 14
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Boston 14,
So glad you found what you wanted, and sorry I didn't help. I got sidetracked - understatement - by moving house and am only just getting back up to speed on FH.
Maggie
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No Problem Maggie , it is so stressful moving house . It is great the couple have tidied the cemetery up ,you can see what you are looking for .As a result I found 5 or 6 others I had been looking for as well.
All the best
Evelyn