Hirsel, The

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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H

irsel, The, a seat of the Earl of Home in Coldstream parish, Berwickshire, on the right bank of Leet Water, 1¾ mile NNW of Coldstream town. A spacious sandstone edifice, it stands amid beautiful grounds, adorned with very fine woods and with an artificial lake (2 x 1¼ furl. ). Stone coffins and great quantities of human bones have been exhumed on the grounds. Charles-Alexander-Douglas-Home, seventeenth Baron Home since 1473, and twelfth Earl of Home since 1605 (b. 1834 ; suc. 1881), holds 2597 acres in Berwickshire, valued at £5245 per annum.—Ord. Sur., sh. 26, 1864. See also Hume, Bothwell, and Douglas Castle.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer.