Kingledoors

Fields between the farm and the main Moffat - Edinburgh road

Kingledoors is a group of settlements in a valley in Peeblesshire, near Tweedsmuir. The valley leads to that of the River Tweed.

Kingledoors is part of the parish of Drumelzier. It is bounded on the north by Mossfennan, on the east by Polmood, on the south by the lands of Crook and Oliver.

Looking down Kingledoors Hope

The houses of Kingledoors sit at the foot of a long valley down which runs Kingledoors Burn, and are grouped into three hamlets:

• Chapel Kingledoors is a small settlement at the foot of the valley;
• Kingledoors Hope or Over Kingledoors is at the top end of the valley;
• Kingledoors Craig occupies the lands to the north of the Burn.

Kingledoors was originally part of the barony of Oliver Castle which was originally owned by the Fraser family. When Sir Simon Fraser was killed in 1306, Craig Kingledoors became the property of the Hays, and the other lands the property of the Flemings.

Chapel Kingledoors is named from a chapel dedicated to St Cuthbert. This had been a hermit's cell and as a chapel it was granted to the monks of Melrose along with the adjacent lands called then South Kingledoors. There was previously a peel tower a short way up the valley on the north side of the burn. Much of the land was later tenanted or owned by the Tweedies and a conflict with the Flemings in 1524 led to the death of the then Lord Fleming.

Craig Kingledoors was acquired by William Hay of Drumelzier in 1686 and the Tweedies were proprietors of Chapel Kingledoors and one half of Over Kingledoors in 1712, which property William Hay acquired from the Tweedies before his death, and his son Alexander in 1736 had a Crown charter of the whole property. The estate then passed through a succession of owners including Sir George Montgomery of Macbiehill, Baronet and James Tweedie of Quarter who bought up many properties previously owned by the Tweedies.

Kingledoors Burn which runs through the valley is a gravel bed stream which has provided a basis for several geographical research papers.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Kingledoors)

• Location map: 55°31’48"N, 3°25’12"W
• Michael Forbes Tweedie The History of the Tweedie or Tweedy Family (1902)

References

• J W Buchan and Rev. H Paton: A History of Peeblesshire, 1925-7
• Peter C Klingeman: Gravel-bed Rivers in the Environment, 1998, Water Resources Publication ISBN 1-887201-13-0
• R. J. Price: Glacial Meltwater Channels in the Upper Tweed Drainage Basin' - The Geographical Journal, Vol. 126, No. 4 (Dec., 1960)