Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Cowdenknowes

Cowdenknowes, an estate, with a mansion, part ancient and part modern, in Earlston parish, Berwickshire, on the left bank of Leader Water, 1 mile S of Earlston village. Its strong old tower, with deep pit beneath and ' hanging tree' outside (the latter cut down barely 50 years since), was the seat of those ancestors of the Earls of Home whose feudal cruelties called forth the malediction-

Vengeance! vengeance! when and where?
Upon the house of Cowdenknowes, now and ever mair.

Their estate has long been alienated, and now is held by William Cotesworth, Esq. (b. 1827), who owns 2331 acres in Berwick and Roxburgh shires, valued at £2702 per annum. Behind the house rises Earlston Black Hill (1031 feet), a picturesque conical eminence, crowned with remains of a Roman camp. All know the plaintive air and one at least of the three versions of the ballad-

"O the broom, and the bonny, bonny broom,
And the broom of the Cowdenknowes,"
And aye sae sweet as the lassie sang
I' the bught, milking the ewes.

But the broom-sprinkled braes and haughs of Cowdenknowes-'one of the most classical and far-famed spots in Scotland'-had been sadly stripped of their golden adornments by the so-called march of agricultural improvement, when, in the winter of 1861-62, the hand of Nature nipped what man had spared. See pp. 133-137 of Lauder's Scottish Rivers (ed. 1874).


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "an estate, with a mansion, part ancient and part modern"   (ADL Feature Type: "land parcels")
Administrative units: Earlston ScoP       Berwickshire ScoCnty

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