A LETTER from SCOTLAND. Susan Young writes to her Australian relatives after her first Visit to LANGHOLM and "GEORGEFIELD", the pre-1843 home of the MURRAY Family. I just want to let you know how things went in Langholm. I discovered it is pronounced LANGUM, not Lang-home. I was corrected pretty quickly on my pronunciation, not that I minded. We arrived at Langholm from Edinburgh late morning and checked into the Crown Hotel. This is the same Crown Inn that held a farewell party for the Murray family prior to their departure to Australia (in 1843). On the wall is a board showing the cornets of the Langholm Common Riding (a horse race) The fifth name on the board is James Murray 1821. The next Murray is Matthew Murray 1840. We had lunch and departed for Georgefield. Along the way we stopped at the Westerkirk Cemetery, old and new, at a small town called Bent Path. There were a lot of Murray people in the cemetery, and I later discovered a book giving a complete transcript of all the gravestones in the cemetery. I have ordered this and ............. I will certainly distribute the information once I have received it. I did photograph some of them but as yet haven't put my photographs on the computer to look at them. From there we went out to Georgefield. I stood there like a shag on a rock, just looking. The original stables on the property have been turned into a B&B establishment, run by the current owners of Georgefield. You can't see any change to the external structure, except new paint. The house itself looks no different from photographs I have seen previously. The current owners are William and Sandra Briggs. They came out to see me, and kindly enough invited me into the house. They have owned it for the past 10 years and admit to having done nothing with the original house, except live in it. The outside is in need of repair. There is a place over the front door where there was once a coat-of-arms which fell off many years ago. They took me through the house to the old kitchen which they are using as a store-room, and which still has the original hooks hanging from the ceiling. I took some photographs of the coat of arms to try and determine if it is the Murray one or not. Half-way up the sprial staircase there is a door which leads to the outside, but just outside the door was bombed in the war, so the door is sealed. She had an aerial photograph of the property which shows how the line of the house once was (again, I photographed the photograph). I also saw a copy of an advertisement from the 6 May 1911 Country Life which had Georgefield for sale. This advertisement was for The Historical, Sporting and Agricultural Estate of Westerhall. This property was 11,282 acres and comprised an Entrance Lodge (near Bentpath), Bentpath Bridge, Westerhall House, and Georgefield House. There was also 6 valuable hill pasture farms, the village of Bentpath with Hotel, Post and Telegraph Office, stables and a keeper's house. There is a photograph of it all in 1911. This was a huge property, but it was not owned by the Murrays at that time. I did enquire if the deeds to the property listed previous owners so we could determine if James Murray owned or leased the property, but Sandra said their copy was at the Bank, and as far as she can remember, it didn't. She did indicate she knew previous owners were families named Mashiter, Balfour for 20 years or more, then the current owners. Sandra suggested I go back to Bentpath and see the lady who lived in the old school, and ask for keys to the old library (which was worth a visit on its own) and have a look at some of the old maps. As it turned out, the library was open and there I met the amazing Mr Bell. He indicated that his great great grandfather had been a 'pedlar' and lived on Georgefield at the time of the Murrays. He had an old, beautifully written Day Book of all his dealings of the time. In 1858 there was a Mr Borthwick at Georgefield (not sure if he was the owner or a worker) who made purchases and payments. He was paid in clothing! Mr Bell suggested that the ratings returns would indicate who owned/leased the property, but they didn't commence until 1866, long after the Murrays arrived in Australia. We then headed off towards Lockerbie to try and find Haregills, without a map, and failed. We did find Kirtleton, another property owned by the Murrays. It was fairly well hidden from the road, so I wandered down the drive to take a peek, and some photographs. It appears again it was another huge property. When I came back up to the gate I took a photograph of the gatekeeper's house, to be confronted by a rather large and aggressive man demanding to know "Lassie, what is the purpose of the photograph you just took?" I was a little taken aback by his attitude, but explained why I wanted a photograph and he seemed OK with that. However, I left the place wondering why he hadn't stopped me going down the drive (maybe he was asleep), and who on earth could live there now who needed such aggressive protection. I am not sure what his reaction would have been if he knew I had walked down the drive and taken photographs. Once I get my camera and photographs sorted, I will put some onto disk and bring them to the reunion (at Aberdeen, NSW on July 1, 2006.) I look forward to seeing you there. Susan Young 21 June 2006 [LINEAGE: Susan Carolyn Baker d/o Philippa Carolyn Baylis d/o Trevor Murray Baylis s/o Henry George Baylis s/o Sybella Murray d/o James Murray of "Warrawang"]