Buchans of Borthwick

When I travelled to Newlandrig, on the day I came down with Covid, I was probably missing the subtle clues about the landscape and the built environment. Helen was driving me around the locations associated with Robert Buchan b1813. Most of these places are significant for many other Buchan descendants too.  The Buchans were in Newlandrig by 1808, when an infant son died and was buried in Newbattle Churchyard. They were there in the 1921 census, barely. We drove along the Dalkeith Bypass (A68) to turn off onto Main St (B6372). Soon after the turnoff was Dewarton, and I really can't remember it, where the Buchans lived from about 1800-1804/5. Newlandrig is half way between Pathead and Gorebridge. It  is about 10 minutes drive from Dalkeith, and perhaps 20 minutes from Edinburgh by car. Being tucked in the middle of a rural landscape, only a minor road passes anywhere near it. However it is a pretty place, with wide open fields on either side, and patches of dense trees that evo...

Out of no-where came the chance to visit Edinburgh after a holiday in Ireland. Where to visit, who to visit? I contacted all my collaborators in the region, with hopes to catch up to several.  These are my must visit places: Newlandrig - over a century of Buchan occupation. I intend to try to follow all the families living there till 1921 (and beyond). I might get to meet a relative still in residence after 220 years.  National Mining Museum, 0.5km from where Robert Buchan bc1813 died in a mining accident one cold January morning at the age of 74. Naturally I am interested in the museum as well. Newbattle cemeteries old and new (where George and Jean, and their son Robert are buried with probably no headstones). Easthouses in the Parish of Newbattle, where Buchans lived. Dalkeith - possible origin of our Buchan family, where headstones can be found and where the Midlothian Local History archives are located. Edinburgh City - a walking tour, a day in the National Records of Sco...