Shawbraes Is a Category B Listed Building. This Is Defined As

e Htory of Shawbrae Farm

A. The Farmhouse Building

(1) Shawbraes is a Category B listed building. This is defined as:

Category B Buildings of regional or more than local importance, or major examples of some particular period, style or building type which may have been altered.

(2) On the British Listed Buildings website, the following description is given:

Shawbraes Farmhouse Including Garden Walls, Coldingham Name: Shawbraes Farmhouse Including Garden Walls Category: B Date Listed: 26 January 2000 Historic Scotland Building ID: 46664 OS Grid Coordinates: 386414, 662439 Latitude/Longitude: 55.8550, -2.2186 Location: Coldingham, The Scottish Borders TD14 5LE Locality: Coldingham County: Scottish Borders Country: Scotland Postcode: TD14 5LE

Description: 18th century in origin with later additions and alterations. Symmetrical 2-storey, 5-bay, rectangular- plan farmhouse with taller addition at rear forming near L-plan; single storey, single bay wing to outer right; later single storey, 3-bay wing recessed to outer left. Harl-pointed sandstone and whinstone rubble; cream sandstone dressings; dry-dashed wing to outer left. Droved quoins and long and short surrounds to openings in part; ashlar margins; projecting cills throughout.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: main block with timber panelled door centred at ground; 2-pane letterbox fanlight; single window aligned at 1st ﬂoor; single windows at both ﬂoors in remaining bays to left and right. Single window in single storey wing to outer right. Single windows in 3-bay wing recessed to outer left.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: single storey projection to left with single windows in both bays; principal block set behind with small attic light off-set to left of centre. Taller wing adjoined to right.

Predominantly 8- and 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slate roofs; stone- coped skews to principal block; scrolled skewputts with decorative rope-moulding. Sandstone apex and wallhead stacks; brick-built stack to rear wing; various circular cans. Iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: not seen 1999.

GARDEN WALLS: coped rubble walls partially enclosing site.

1 Notes: Noted in the OS Name Book as "...a neat and good house, 2 stories [sic] high and slated, with small garden and suitable ofﬁces attached." An early, well-detailed farmhouse which appears to have evolved over a considerable period of time. The scrolled skewputts suggest the original structure dates to before 1800. The fact that the right hand side of the principal block lacks both quoins and surrounds to its openings (which are themselves closer together than those to the left) suggests that this portion of the house is the earliest. The remains of the former farm steading are set to the SW. Rutherfurd's notes a Mr James Anderson as farmer here in 1866.

B. Location

(1) An old Ordnance Survey Map (below) shows its location west of Reston, and south of the river Eye Water (which runs through to Eyemouth), the railway line and the A.1, both of which run up to Edinburgh.

2 (2) A street map (below) gives a different perspective of the location (see orange arrow):

3 (3) A satellite Google Map (below) shows its rural location, as well as its proximity to the river, railway line, and motorway:

4 (4) A close-up aerial view (below) gives a better idea of the farmhouse and outbuildings:

C. Previous owners (early 1800s to

1. Ownership by John Nisbet:

(a) Early 1800s (Extract from Coldingham: Parish and Priory by A. Thomson, published in 1908):

5 (b) 1841: the 1841 census shows John Nisbet (aged 80) as living at Shawbraes:

(c) 1843: this is confirmed on page 121 of the 1843 edition of the Directory to Gentlemen’s Seats, Villages, &c. in Scotland, which shows that Shawbraes was occupied by John Nisbet:

6 2. Ownership by the Anderson family:

(a) 1851: by the 1851 Census, the owner was Thomas Anderson (aged 44), who presumably bought the farm following the death of John Nisbet:

(b) 1861: the 1861 census shows Thomas Anderson (now aged 54) as still being the owner/ occupier:

7 (c) 1862 (Extract from the Scottish Post Office Directory. N.B. “Preston” must be a typo mistake - it should be “Reston”):

(d) 1868 (Extract from the Scottish Post Office Directory):

(e) 1872 (Extract from the Scottish Post Office Directory):

(f) 1878 (Extract from the Scottish Post Office Directory):

(g) 1878 (Extract from Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Scotland):

D. Summary of Ownership (Extract from Coldingham: Parish and Priory by A. Thomson - 1908)

8 E. Ownership by the Cockburn (and Swan) family:

The Will of Margaret Cockburn (nee Swan) was signed on 9 August 1881, in which she bequeaths the bulk of her estate to Christian Cockburn (who married Robert George Swan in 1885). While Shawbraes is not mentioned in the Will, it’s worth noting that the 1881 census (taken on 3 April 1881) gives Margaret’s address as West Edge Farm, whereas the 1882-1885 Scottish Post Office Directory, which was printed in 1882 (see (a) below) gives her address as Shawbraes. One could therefore assume that, following the death of her husband, David Cockburn, in 1878, and sometime after the 1881 census, she sold West Edge Farm, and purchased the Shawbraes estate in either late 1881 or early 1882.

1. References to ownership in Directories:

(a) 1882-1885 (Extract from the Scottish Post Office Directory). N.B. this must refer to Margaret Cockburn (nee Bonar), who died in 1889. :

(b) 1886 (Extract from Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Scotland). N.B. this must refer to Margaret Cockburn (nee Bonar), who died in 1889, and, since she wasn’t Nobility or Clergy, she was counted amongst the Gentry:

(c) 1893-1896 (Extract from the Scottish Post Office Directory). N.B. this must still be a reference to Margaret Cockburn (nee Bonar), who died in 1889, at which time the ownership passed to her daughter and only surviving child, Christian Swan (nee Cockburn):

9 (d) 1901-1904 (Extract from the Scottish Post Office Directory). N.B. Robert G. Swan is the husband of Christian Swan (nee Cockburn):

(e) 1903 (extracted from Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Scotland: Part I):

2. Reference to ownership in the 1908 Will of Christian Swan (d. 1919).

Christian Swan (nee Cockburn) inherited Shawbraes for her mother, Margaret Cockburn (nee Bonar). Christian’s Will was signed at Shawbraes on 19 December 1908. In it, she gives the occupation of the Shawbraes estate to her nephew, David Cockburn (b. 1869; d. 1946), provides for the education of David Bonar Cockburn (b. 1903; d. 1946), and conveys the Estate of Shawbraes to David Bonar Cockburn, and his heirs, following the death of the last survivor of Robert George Swan, Christian swan (nee Cockburn), David Cockburn, and Elizabeth Nielson Cockburn (nee Swan):

10 N.B. It’s interesting to note that the Rev. James Cockburn (1872-1920), brother of David Cockburn (1869-1946), had made a Will in 1897, in which (i) he appoints David as one of his Trustees and Executors; (ii) provides for his wife and any children to be born; and (iii) in the event of his wife and any children not surviving him, conveys his estate to his brother, David, and sister, Isabella, in equal shares. However, on 10 December 1908, the Rev. James Cockburn signed a Codicil to his Will, in which (i) he revokes the appointment of his brother, David, as Trustee and Executor; (ii) removes David from his Will; and (iii) in the event of his wife and any children not surviving him, conveys his estate entirely to his sister, Isabella. No reason is given for the change, but the proximity of the dates for this Codicil and the Will of his aunt, Christian Swan (nee Cockburn), might suggest that he felt David no longer needed to be provided for, as he was allowed the occupation of the Shawbraes Estate.

3. The period from 1908 to just after the end of the Second World War (1945):

The firm of R. G. and W. B. Swan was dissolved on 1 January 1907, when Robert George Swan retired. However, he may well have continued to run the Shawbraes estate, along with his wife Christian, until his death in 1913, perhaps with the help of David Cockburn, prior to his emigration to Southern Rhodesia. Thereafter, Christian may have continued to run the farm, perhaps with the help of one of the Scott relatives, until her death in 1919.

Given the contents of Christian’s Will, in which the Shawbraes Estate is to be conveyed to David Bonar Cockburn, following the death of the last survivor of the preceding generations, the Estate was probably managed by relatives from 1919 to 1945, or it could have been let out by the Executors of Christian’s Will.

Memories of David Andrew Cockburn (b. 1963):

I do remember my father telling me that, when he was a young sailor in WW2, he went and stayed with relatives at Shawbraes farm. I also remember him telling me that his father David Bonar Cockburn went back to school in Edinburgh from Rhodesia for a while. My Dad and his younger

11 brother, John (Rhodesian born), sold Shawbraes after the war to set themselves up farming in Rhodesia.

F. Later Owners

1. 1964-1967: The History of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club, Vol. XXXVII, Part III, published in 1967, shows that Mrs M. Y. Pender was admitted as a member in 1964. Giving her address at Shawbraes, this implies that she, or her husband, was the owner or leaser of the property.

2. 1977: The Edinburgh Gazette shows that the Tweed Commissioners used the address of Shawbraes, which means that they were either the owners/leasers at that time:

12 3. Now: The current owners would appear to be Hugh Veitch, who runs the Reston & Berwick Farming Co., Ltd., with the address of Shawbraes House, Reston, TD14 5LE, Scotland; tel: 07970 139 443.

The following article was published in the Berwick Advertiser on 3 February 2003:

13 Robert Ashe 15 December 2013