Rogersceugh isn\u2019t a place that featured in many people\u2019s thoughts down the centuries. Except in 1695 and in the last five or six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that time, it has arisen from the Solway marshes, and is being returned to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In \u2018the seventh year of the rayne of our soveraigne Lord William the Third,\u2019 Sir John Lowther (2nd Baronet, 1642-1706) came to an agreement with the freeholders of Bowness on Solway parish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Namely Thomas Lawson the elder, John Lawson the younger, John Will the elder, John Will the younger, John Sharpe, Thomas Draipe, George Ayrton, John Peat, John Clarke, Thomas Clarke, Edward Sharpe<\/strong>, and Gerard Ritson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The document, as ever in these cases, runs to several, verbose pages. But basically, it\u2019s a deal concerning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018the parcel of land<\/mark> called Rogersceugh<\/em>\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In short, Sir John Lowther agreed to fence off and drain 20 acres at Rogersceugh at his own expense, <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018to create a duckery.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And the local freeholders agree to him having the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, Sir John Lowther was the lord of the manor and you probably didn\u2019t say know to him, even if you did own your own land and didn\u2019t have to pay him any form of rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Rogersceugh was, in 1695:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018encompassed by boggy and mossy ground and subject to several trespasses, losses and inconveniences\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, the locals didn\u2019t want it anyway. And if Sir John wanted to \u2018digge, make, cast and complete a good and sufficient bank or fence upon or about the said released land\u2019 at his own expense, then it was no skin off their noses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deed also binds Sir John\u2019s \u2018heirs and assigns\u2019 to the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what did Sir John Lowther get from his trouble and expense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, he SAID he intended to build \u2018a duckery\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast forward, and <\/p>\n\n\n\n Documentary evidence regarding historic repairs to the buildings at Rogersceugh Farm, dating from 1742, relate to the repairs required for a farmhouse in very poor condition<\/em>. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So it seems the duckery either didn\u2019t work, or was never the plan anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could it be that Sir John\u2019s intentions always were to drain the moss and build a farm there? <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was common land, and the freeholders might have been reluctant to agree to him enclosing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But by framing it: \u201cI\u2019ll take that useless bit off bog off your hands, and do you a favour\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n For sure, 1695 described Rogersceugh as a parcel of land. But by 1742 there was a tatty house. And it wasn\u2019t a duck house!<\/p>\n\n\n\n An archaeological date site says that after 1742:<\/p>\n\n\n\n plans were drawn up for the full replacement of this structure with a smallholding, comprising a farmhouse flanked by a double byre and a single byre. Remnants of this can still be seen at Rogersceugh Farm, which makes this farm a rare example of a clearly planned and designed smallholding, although it has since been significantly altered and extended to create a large farmstead.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Source<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It isn\u2019t easy to build anything on a bog, but there was some solid ground there (a drumlin), and by 1742 for sure, Rogersceugh farm was perched on top of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it doesn\u2019t seem to have been a great success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast forward again, and Rogersceugh is: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cquite forsaken and at present of little value.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Any fences have fallen down<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So for sure, the Lowther \u2019heirs and assigns\u2019 hadn\u2019t kept Sir John\u2019s promise. And the farm hadn\u2019t proved worth the Lowthers\u2019 while to maintain it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When the 1839 tithe map was drawn up, it was being farmed by Pattinson Lawson, owner of Bowness Hall and its 451 acres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But most of the Rogersceugh land is recorded as either moss or \u2018uncultivated\u2019: just 54 acres (of 316) of the land Pattinson Lawson was renting are listed as \u2018arable\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1841, there were Lawsons at Rogersceugh, with a section of the census to themselves, namely:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Richard 70,\u00a0 Sarah 50, Joseph 17, and Robert 13. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But by 1851, they\u2019d moved to Bowness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was also a young gamekeeper, William Robinson, 30, with wife Ellen, 25, and daughterJane Ann, 2. And curiously, an ag lab called Margaret Little, 31, with six children aged 12 down to 6 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They didn\u2019t stick around, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1851, Rogersceugh was occupied by William Waiting, 47, a farmer bailliff, with his wife and seven children. He was born in Westmorland and wife Maria in Dover, Kent. So new to the area. Son George, 2, was born Bowness, so they likely had moved to Rogersceugh about 1849.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was to let again just two years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018The greatest proportion of this farm consists of moss land, of which about 140 acres have recently been drayned, clayed and broken up<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n By 1853, it was being run by John Sibson, and his wife and family. They were born at Grinsdale, so again may not have known fully what they were taking on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They stuck at it, though, with son John Sibson taking over down the line and still there in 1886, when the Lowthers advertised it to let, \u2018with 490 acres of arable and pasture land\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The farm was taken by John Little, who was born at Brackenrigg and, aged six, living \u2018next door\u2019 to Rogersceugh on the 1851 census, with his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Little left Rogersceugh in 1902, with his brother William Little, of Bowness Hall, taking it on (in addition to the hall). <\/p>\n\n\n\n It would seem the farm buildings were bought by the RSPB in 2004 for just under \u00a3120,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The farm was rented out for a while, but not maintained due to lack of funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was the case at North Plain, on the Solway coast, where the farmhouse and buildings looked really tatty when they were put on the market by the RSPB in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rogersceugh was described in a 2004 BBC report as: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018a former livestock farm, of 205 acres\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Rogersceugh buildings were demolished in 2020, for Natural England and the RSPB to restore Bowness Common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Why?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Rogersceugh in 1742<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Rogersceugh in 1802<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Victorian times<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The end of Rogersceugh Farm<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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