Ghost Trails of Edinburgh and the Borders by Clive Kristen

Author:Clive Kristen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ghosts, Scotland, Scottish Borders, spirits, ghouls, boggarts, haunting, haunts, murder, local history.
ISBN: 9781781662465
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

Peebleshire

Abbotsford House was the home of novelist Sir Walter Scott. The visitor can walk his library and even sit in his dining room where the great man died after exhausting himself writing in an attempt to pay off huge debts. It is surprisingly that the most popular Scottish writer of the era got himself in to such a financial pickle. This had something to do with ill advised investment in print and publishing, but Abbotsford also became an albatross of arrears.

The house was created by Scott himself he built it on 100 acres of farm land. The work began in 1811 and was finished in 1824. Along the way the project went massively over budget. It was a bit like the new Wembley Stadium or the Millennium Dome. Like the gullible public Scott believed those who said vast enterprises need not be expensive.

One of these was George Bullock, sometimes described as Scott’ s Architect or his craftsman supervisor, who died in London in late April 1818. On the night closest to his death Scott was awoken by loud noises inside the house. He searched the property with a sword in hand but found no explanation. He said :

‘The noise resembled half-a-dozen men hard at work putting up boards and furniture, and nothing can be more certain than that there was nobody on the premises at the time’.

When he learnt that Bullock had died he assumed that his ghost may have been responsible. Indeed the spectre of George Bullock is supposed to have returned to the house several times. Perhaps it is to inform his master of ‘another small underestimation of costs’.

The sturdy apparition of Sir Walter Scott reputedly haunts the Dining Room in which he had a large say in designing.

***

It has been called Ghastly Gala and worse. But, I have visited Galashiels many times and never found it less than delightful. It does not have the splendour of Salisbury, the civility of Cheltenham or the erudition of Edinburgh. But it has a liveliness around its rough edges and an integrity that is uniquely Scottish.

In the 18th century Buckholm Tower was owned by James Pringle AKA Lord Buckholm. James was not a lovely man. His wife left him taking her young son with her. His reputation was such that only a very stupid or very well paid woman would spend time alone with him in the Tower.

James hated Covenanters. His favourite sport was hunting them down with two monstrous man-masticating mastiffs. On one occasion he was invited by the Captain of a Troop of Dragoons to assist in breaking up an unlawful assembly of his most popular prey. He knew his local territory well and guessed correctly where the Covenanters would meet. But they had their spies too. The meeting on Ladhope Moor had already broken up when the Dragoons moved in.

But two Covenanters had not escaped. They were an old man, Geordie Elliott and his son, William. It seems that the old man had fallen, or been thrown, from his horse.

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