Foulden

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Foulden is an ancient parish and village in Berwickshire, Scotland, situated not far above the Whiteadder Water, and seven miles west of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

It is said to be "one of the most striking village ensembles in the Borders".(Strang).

It was originally part of the superiority of the Priory of Coldingham. However at a very early date it was resigned to the Ramsay family who had it erected into a Free Barony. William de Ramsay swore fealty to King Edward I of England, for his lands of Dalwolsie (Dalhousie), Edinburghshire, and of Foulden, Berwickshire, in 1296, and again in 1304.

One of this family, George, lived in a small tower house at Foulden Bastel and died in January 1592; his tomb is extant. Another, Thomas Ramsay, was Minister of Foulden in 1630 when he built the tower house at nearby Nether Mordington. About this time the barony of Foulden and its lands were conveyed to Sir John Wilkie, a rich burgess of Lanark, in which family it remained until they failed in the male line with James Bruce Wilkie of Foulden, a Captain in the King's Own Scottish Borderers Regiment, who died 12 December 1935. The local manor, Foulden House, rebuilt circa 1800, had a huge main Georgian block of three and a half stories, flanked by peristyled and porticoed two-storey pavilion wings. It was a casualty of the post WWII country-house demolitions.

The parish church and its churchyard date from the 13th century and the present church was rebuilt in 1789. The 18th century Manse, which stands opposite the entrance to the churchyard, was rebuilt in 1841. The ancient Tithe Barn adjoining the churchyard, one of only two remaining in Scotland, where once The Church's 10% was deposited, is now in the care of and protected by Historic Scotland.

The parish is now conjoined with its eastern neighbours and there is a local Foulden Mordington & Lamberton Community Council (equivalent to an English parish council) which meets monthly.

[edit] References

• The Great Seal of Scotland, 13 September 1636, no.589.
• The Scottish Nation, by William Anderson, Edinburgh, 1870, vol.2, pps:321-2.
• Borders and Berwick, by Charles A Strang, Rutland Press, 1994. ISBN 1-873190-10-7
• Smallholding Memories, General editor John Williams, J.P., Berwick-upon-Tweed, 2000.
• The Scottish Genealogist, Edinburgh, vol.LII, no,1, March 2005, p48. ISSN 0300-337XScotland