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The Birtwhistles of Craven and Galloway |
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tenants-in-common
of the cattle business. Robert died in 1815, and it is from his probate
inventory that we learn he had a ¼ share of the stock on the brothers’ sheep
farms in the |
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Figure 11 Robert Birtwhistle’s
Crake Moor Farm on the Long |
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John McIntyre of Letterewe was the Birtwhistles’
partner on the Rosshire sheep farms, and John’s
involvement in the business probably explains why Robert’s will shows him
with a ¼ share of the Rosshire sheep, rather than the 1/3rd share we would expect if the three Birtwhistle brothers
only had been involved in the venture as tenants-in-common. We know something
about the Birtwhistle/McIntyre sheep farms because of a visit to Rosshire by James Hogg, the “Ettrick Shepherd”, who spent
some time with John McIntyre at Letterewe and
provided a report of his visit to
Walter Scott. James Hogg was a failed border sheep farmer who had walked from
the borders in order to find a sheep farm to lease, and had written to Walter Scott in the hope that Scott and
some of his friends might provide financial backing for a sheep farming venture in the According to Hogg, the Birtwhistle/ McIntyre estate had been cleared in 1802 and there were considerable crops of corn and potatoes left by the tenants who had removed last term. From Letterewe, Hogg travelled to Dunconnel, which had not been cleared, where he stayed with the laird. The estate was crammed full of people and the valleys are impoverished by perpetual cropping. The |
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