Digging out Alexander b1816


Alexander Buchan b1816 was the only one of the siblings to my knowledge who had a headstone. He was also the only one of the siblings to move outside Midlothian to work, see the brief biography to follow. As luck would have it I was staying in Roxburghshire, where he lived, died and was buried. I had hopes of finding the lovely headstone that adorned FindAGrave in Maxton Churchyard. Getting a hire car in Roxburghshire, which was initially not on the cards, did mean that I wanted to make an effort.

Well it was really was not so much digging out, more scraping away - lichen. I went to Maxton Churchyard where Alexander, brother of Robert Buchan, was said to be buried with wife Jane and son James. I first saw Maxton as I drove out of the hire care place and headed towards Dryburgh Abbey, my first tourist spot! What luck I thought, here is Andrew!

A day or so later, after my first day in Hawick Heritage Hub, I drove to Maxon, found the church and two cemeteries and spent an hour looking for Alexander's headstone. Despite knowing what it looked like, I could not find it, and I looked twice. There were about 40 headstones lying on the grass, and many were covered in lichen. Over an hour later I sadly drove away, thinking there had been an error.

A lovely corner of Maxton Cemetery


The next day in Hawick, I went straight to the Monument Inscription book for Maxton Churchyard. Sure enough, it was there, and at least I now knew the surrounding names, and I had seen them!

Back I went that evening. I found all the names on the page except Buchan. I decided to scrape away lichen from any headstone nearby. The first two headstones revealed the wrong names! And my fingernails were broken, but fear not, no blood. I tried the third, which had a small softwood stick lying across it. You can guess. Yes it was, and I was very careful as I removed the lichen with that stick. Fortunately it had fallen backwards, in a way to reveal the inscription, I am not sure all the fallen headstones would have done so. In the 30 years since the headstone was listed in the Monument Inscription book, and then photographed for FindAGrave, it had fallen and been covered over. Around it though were some very nice creamy portulaca-like flowers.

This was it!

Chuffed, I then decided to place some flowers on the headstone, given that no-one had visited it for a very long time. Almost all, if not all, of his descendants moved to Canada. I drove to the nearest town (where the hire-care place was) and found some nice yellow and white ones, which was fitting given the brilliant fields of canola nearby. [Actually fields of canola are everywhere here, currently in full pulsating flower]. Job done. I couldn't pray as such, but I did think a few reverent thoughts.


My tribute to Alexander and his line

I am only sorry I never thought to put flowers next to Isabella's.

I have no expectations of finding any more of the siblings' headstones. James, Helen, Robert, George and Andrew don't have them, and though William is buried in Edinburgh, I am not sure where. 

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