Thatched Cottage, Packman's Brae, Polwarth

This late 18th or early 19th century single-storey thatched cottage originally comprised two separate dwellings. It sits within a rural hamlet near Duns, amongst houses of varying dates, and underwent comprehensive restoration and extension in 2003–04.

The cottage is built on a rectangular plan with four symmetrical bays and a piended thatched roof. The rubble walls are smooth lime-rendered and the door and window openings have droved, long and short margins in ashlar red sandstone. The main southeast-facing elevation has doors to the outer bays with two single window openings between them. Single windows appear on each gable, with the southwest window offset to the left. The rear northwest elevation is blank.

The windows are timber sash and case frames in a 16-pane glazing pattern and the doors are vertical timber boarded. The roof is thatched in wheat straw with a turf ridge and has a timber boarded ventilation detail under the eaves. A later stone-built chimneystack sits at the centre of the ridge with a single clay pot.

The interior was seen in 2017 and the detailing predominantly dates to the 2003–04 restoration and extension works. Part of the thick internal cross wall that separated the two former cottages still survives and there are deep window cills and door openings.

Later additions from 2003–04 adjoin the rear elevation and comprise a glazed, pitched-roof sunroom connecting to a taller single-storey stone and slate wing with attic. A detached garage stands to the west, also dating from this period. All these additions are excluded from the listing.

Historical Development

Thatched Cottage is set to the east side of a former village of thatched buildings in Polwarth, between Greenlaw and Duns, in the Scottish Borders.

The building is first shown clearly on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey Map, surveyed in 1858 and published in 1862, although a group of buildings appears in a similar position and orientation on Blackadder's map of Berwickshire from 1797. The 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map shows the full extent of the former village of Polwarth in the mid-19th century, when it consisted of around nine rows of cottages along the main road (A6105) and the now dead-end road just to the north of Thatched Cottage. The map shows the rows of cottages, a farm and two schools with a large village green to the southernmost part. Thatched Cottage sits slightly apart from this group, to the east.

Polwarth is described as "an ancient place" in the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882–5) and throughout the 18th and 19th centuries it was used as a trading post because it was equidistant between Greenlaw and Duns. The St Mungo's Fair was established by Royal Decree at the beginning of the 16th century and was held twice a year on the village green for two days. Local folklore records that two packmen fought on the way to the fair and one was killed. He was buried where he fell on the road between the village and the church, and the road then became known as Packman's Brae. The first edition Ordnance Survey Map (surveyed 1858, published 1862) marks the "Packmans Grave" 200 metres to the southeast of Thatched Cottage.

Polwarth expanded further as a Huguenot village in the 18th century. The Huguenots were a group of French Protestants established following the reformation of the Protestant Church in France around 1550. In 1685 King Louis XIV was concerned about the strength of this religious minority and exiled all Huguenot pastors and forbade the congregation from leaving France. However, around 200,000 Huguenot refugees fled the persecution and around 50,000 are believed to have settled in Britain. Some travelled from the Netherlands to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and a small group then travelled inland and settled in Polwarth. They chose the location because of its seclusion and the convergence of a number of natural streams which were ideal for their leather tanning skills. "Polwarth" is thought to have meant "boggy place" and Thatched Cottage has a stream running along the northern boundary of its garden. The village later developed into a centre for weaving.

The Statistical Accounts recorded a thriving village in the later 18th and 19th centuries. In 1755 the parish population was 251, in 1793 it was 288, and in 1861 it was 251. The 1793 statistical account records various trades in the village. There were three wrights, a mason and a blacksmith, two weavers, two tailors, five shoemakers, a tanner and three carters. Polwarth was an important village on the trade and travel routes and the 1845 account records that the stagecoach between Edinburgh and Duns passed through it every day. Strang (1994: p.48) references Robert Chambers, Pictures of Scotland, which describes the houses in Polwarth as "old-fashioned, having stupendous chimnies of catton clay and each provided with a respectable knocking stone".

In the early 20th century Polwarth was known locally for its vernacular charm and character and was said to have been the prettiest village in Berwickshire. A number of historic postcards from the time show the groups of thatched cottages that were in the main part of the village. One of these postcards shows a thatched building with a piended thatched roof, which may have been a particular vernacular style for a thatched cottage for the area. The Thatch and Thatching Techniques Advice Note includes an illustration of a pair of thatched cottages from an early 19th century pattern book, which is the same plan form and principle elevation of Thatched Cottage in Polwarth.

After the First World War the village population fell dramatically, and the cottages began to fall into disrepair. A personal account in a newspaper article in the Berwickshire News and General Advertiser from 1933 records the state of the village at that time. It describes several roofless and unmaintained buildings and it appears the hamlet quickly deteriorated further during that decade. The decay was probably because of a lack of maintenance which was likely to have been accelerated by the boggy ground conditions. By the 1950s the rows of thatched cottages that formed the main part of the village had been abandoned and were derelict.

Polwarth appears to be unusual in the speed and almost total loss of the former village. The majority of small villages in the Scottish Borders still exist with the loss of some buildings and further new buildings built. Polwarth seems to be unusual in the extent of the almost complete loss of the 18th century vernacular cottages. Thatched Cottage is the only vernacular building from the period known to survive in Polwarth.

The former listed building record describes the condition and materials of Thatched Cottage when it was listed in 1991, which included a thatched roof on couples and purlins under a corrugated sheet roof. By this time the building had been vacant for at least 20 years and was in poor condition. Strang (1994) describes the cottage as having a stitched wheat straw roof under corrugated iron. Photographs from 1998 and 2003 also show that it was built in sandstone rubble with rough ashlar margins. There was only one entrance door in the second bay from the left. The central stack was built in brick and it had cast iron rainwater pipes. There was a roofless stone building to the northwest in the same position as that shown on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map (1862). The Buildings of Scotland describes the building just prior to 2003–04 and confirms the description on the previous listed building record.

In 2003–04 the cottage was comprehensively restored on its original footprint. The window and door openings were partially re-ordered to reflect its earlier arrangement as two separate cottages. The rubble walls were rendered in lime and the window and door openings had new droved stonework surrounds inserted. The previous sawn roof timbers were replaced with a modern roof construction, which incorporated a timber vented overhanging eaves detail to the newly thatched roof. The corrugated covering over the roof was removed and the thatch was reinstated using the traditional materials of wheat straw with a turf ridge. It is likely that the building retains some original fabric both in its external walls and the central wall that divides the former two cottages.

A large extension was built on the footprint of the roofless, stone section to the rear northwest (planning ref: 03/00400/LBC and 03/00401/FUL), which is excluded from the listing.