James Littlejohn - Westrigg

The International Library of Sociology

URBAN AND REGIONAL SOCIOLOGY
In 13 Volumes

First published in 1963 by
Routledge and

Reprinted in 1998,2001 by
Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

1963 James Littlejohn

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

Westrigg
ISBN 0-415-17712-X
Urban and Regional Sociology: 13 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17830-4
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17838-X
ISBN 9781136259999 (ePub)

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this
reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original
may be apparent

THE research on which this book is based was done mainly during University vacations between I949 and I95I; consequently all the data refers to this period. It was written in the form of a Ph.D. thesis in 1954; this book is a compression of the thesis with much purely local detail omitted and with the addition of pages 1325.

I thank the following institutions and persons, without whose aid the book could not have been written or published. First, the many friends I made in Westrigg; the Committee of the Social Science Research Centre, University of Edinburgh, for grants which made field-work possible; Dr K. L. Little, Head of the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, who supervised the original thesis; Dr W. Watson, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Manchester, whose advice on the composition of the book was invaluable; Mr S. Sklaroff, Department of Public Health and Social Medicine, University of Edinburgh, for advice on statistical procedures; Dr S. F. Collins, formerly of the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, who drew the maps. I have also benefited greatly from the comments of Dr J. Nalson, University of Western Australia, and of my colleagues in the Social Science Research Centre and Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh. Finally, I wish to thank the Trustees of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for a generous subvention which has made possible the publication of this book.

Edinburgh,
February, I963.

WESTRIGG is an upland parish in a mainly rural county in the south of Scotland. It belongs to the Borders, a not clearly defined area of Scotland whose inhabitants regard themselves as a slightly different group within the nation, different for example in dialect and in the Common Riding ceremonies of border towns. There are Border Associations in Edinburgh and Glasgow for borderers exiled in these two cities. The main routes from England north all by-pass the parish, and it is regarded as a somewhat isolated place by people of neighbouring districts who live nearer the main lines of communication.

It has been inhabited for several thousand years. There are two prehistoric stone circles, several circular earth embankments and the remains of a small Roman camp. The first general account of the parish is given in the statistical Account of Scotland of 1791-98, which indicates that Westrigg was then undergoing the changes in land ownership, labour organization, and agricultural techniques general throughout the more enlightened parts of the country.1 The parish seems to have contributed to the agricultural revolution. One recent author remarks that the open drain of the hill farm which has played an important part in the improvement of the herbage of the area is thought to have been first used in Westrigg about 1770.2 It is clear from the description in the Statistical Account that by the end of the eighteenth century the economy of the parish was assuming the form it has retained since, the main features being division of the land into farms devoted to sheep rearing with individual ownership or lease of farms and hired labour paid in kind and money wages. Both in this and the later Statistical Account of 1845 the writer mentions that the local farmers are experimenting with grasses and the breeding of animals. One of these farmers is still remembered in the parish partly from a new strain of sheep he bred and partly from an encounter he had with the last witch of the parish. She turned up at his farm begging for a dish of meat. He replied that he didnt have any. She departed with the remark that he would have plenty in the morning; that night one of his cows suddenly and mysteriously died.

The only new element in the economy since then is the afforestation of about 8,000 acres of what was before sheep pasture. This began in 1939 as one of the many projects of the Forestry Commission in the borders of Scotland. The parish has undergone steady depopulation since the middle of the last century (see page 139); this has not reduced the productivity of farms, presumably because more efficient farming techniques are constantly being discovered.

The main valley in the parish is about a quarter of a mile wide and 500 feet above sea-level; from it rise hills about 2,000 feet high. It is apparent (see map 1, page 3) that the distribution of land among the farms has followed a method imposed by terrain, altitude and the necessity of growing a crop to provide winter feed for sheep. Ninety-seven per cent of the land is rough hill grazing; one of the difficulties of stock rearing in those high altitudes is relative lack of winter feed on the hills. The farms are so situated that each includes a certain acreage of fertile alluvial soil on a valley floor on which hay or some other suitable winter feed can be grown. (Few farms however are self-sufficient in this respect, and most buy hay from outside.) Each farm then consists of a few fields (mostly on the central valley floor) and large stretches of hill grazing going back to the boundaries of the parish.