Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T08:35:37.372Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Tibetans in a Shooting Lodge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2014

Steve Bruce
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen, UK
Get access

Summary

The Dumfriesshire village of Eskdalemuir sits in all the parts of its name read in reverse: the muir of the dale of the Esk, or to be more precise, two Esks – the White and the Black – which unite at the southern end of the parish and flow via Longtown to the Solway sands. The main valley is a quarter of a mile wide and 500 feet above sea level. It rises on each side of the White Esk to gloomy hills, the bleak uplands where the Edwardian upper classes shot grouse and John Buchan's fictional hero Richard Hannay fled in The Thirty-Nine Steps. In 1949 almost all the land was rough sheep-grazing with each farm having a few fields on the valley floor where grass and corn were grown for feed. The few houses are scattered but maps distinguish between Eskdalemuir, the site of the parish church and the school (which closed in 2005), and Davington, a few miles north.

In the early 1950s James Littlejohn, an anthropologist from Edinburgh, spent the university vacations studying sheep farmers and foresters in the area, which he anonymised as Westrigg. As a site for observing change in Scotland's religious climate, Eskdalemuir does not immediately seem promising. It does have an heroic past, of which a neglected gravestone in a field just north of the village offers a poignant reminder. It reads: ‘Here lyes Andrew Hislop Martyr shot dead upon This place by Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall and Sir John Graham of Claverhouse for adhering to the Word of God’.

Type
Chapter
Information
Scottish Gods
Religion in Modern Scotland 1900–2012
, pp. 157 - 173
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×