Haddington Twinning Association Bulletin Board

Photos – Irene Higgenbotham.

photo Irene Higgenbotham.

Easter Traditions – On Easter Sunday, many Scottish families participate in an egg rolling contest. After they have boiled, painted and decorated their eggs, the eggs are taken to a park or grassy area where they are rolled down a hill. The person whose egg rolls the farthest distance without breaking is the winner of the contest.

The egg, an ancient symbol of new life, has been associated with pagan festivals celebrating spring. From a Christian perspective, Easter eggs are said to represent Jesus’ emergence from the tomb and resurrection.

The custom of the Easter egg hunt, however comes from Germany. Some suggest that its origins date back to the 16th Century, when Protestant reformer Martin Luther organised egg hunts for his congregation.

The men would hide the eggs for the women and children to find. Decorating eggs for Easter is a tradition that dates back to at least the 13th Century, according to some sources.

A lot of us may enjoy Chocolate eggs at Easter, but originally eating eggs was not allowed by church leaders during the week leading up to Easter, known as Holy Week.

So any eggs laid that week were saved and decorated to make Holy Week eggs, that were then given to children as gifts.

Victorians adapted the tradition with satin – covered eggs filled with Easter gifts. This has now developed into the tradition that many people enjoy today.

Faberge Eggs – What’s so special about Faberge eggs ?

They were handcrafted using gold, diamonds and semi- precious stones like emeralds and pearls. Each one-of-a-kind designs featured pigmented layers of glass enamel, gold leaf and laced metalwork.

Faberge range in size, from three to five inches tall, and took one to two years to complete.

For over a century, the name Faberge has evoked wealth , opulence and the world’s most extravagant Easter eggs. The small, intricately decorated objets d’art – which Russia’s royal House of Romanov commissioned from the jeweller and goldsmith Peter Carl Faberge are still today , some of the most exquisite decorative works ever created.

The Imperial Eggs, as they came to be called, were first designed as Easter gifts in the mid- 1880s ……..

To our friends near and far, if you, like me haven’t got the pleasure of owning a Faberge Egg – have a Happy Easter whatever you are doing…….. and hopefully we shall meet up soon.

March 2021

Peeps into the Past – from Haddington Twinning Archives – Comice Agricole [ Agricultural Show ] from 1994 – Featuring a visit from Haddington Twinning to Aubigny-sur-Nere.

Photographs – Haddington Twinning.

Posted by Irene Higgenbotham 12th March 2021

Visit to New Lanark Cotton Mills with Aubigny Jumelage 2014 – Photographs with thanks Christian Couture.

The New Lanark mills depended upon water power. A dam was constructed on the River Clyde above New Lanark and water was drawn off the river to power the mill machinery, the water first travelled through a tunnel, then through an open channel called the lade.

It then went into a number of water wheels in each mill building. It was not until 1929 that the last water wheel was replaced by a water turbine.

Water power is still used in New Lanark, a new water turbine has been installed in Mill N0. 3 to provide electricity for the tourist areas of the village.

In Owen’s time some 2,500 people lived in New Lanark, many from the poorhouses of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although not the grimmest of mills by far, Owen found conditions unsatisfactory and resolved to improve the workers’ lot. He paid particular attention to the needs of the 500 or so children living in the village and working in the mills.

Living Conditions – In the mid 19th Century, an entire family would have been housed in a single room.

Some sense of such living conditions can be obtained by visiting the reconstructed Millworkers House at New Lanark World Heritage Site.

The living conditions in the village gradually improved, and by the early 20th century families would have had the use of several rooms . It was not until 1933 that the houses had interior cold water taps for sinks and the communal outside toilets were replaced by inside facilities.

From 1938 the village proprietors provided free electricity to all homes in New Lanark, but only enough power was available for one dim light bulb in each room. The power was switched off at 10>00pm Sunday to Friday.

New Lanark today.

It has been estimated that over 400,000 people visit the village each year – the importance of New Lanark has been recognised by UNESCO as one of Scotland’s six World Heritage Sites .

About 130 people live today in New Lanark, of the residential buildings, only Mantilla Row has not been restored. Some of the restoration work was undertaken by private individuals who bought the houses as derelect shells and restored them as private houses. In addition to the 21 owner- occupied properties in the village there were 45 rented properties which were let by a registered association.

Standing on the banks of the River Tweed, Abbotsford was Sir Walter Scott’s creation and, after his death in 1832, somewhere visited by millions. It was built on the proceeds of a phenomenally successful literary career, and Scott became determined to keep it in his family as he worked to pay off huge debts after near bankrupcy in 1825. Abbotsford is an enduring monument to the tastes, talents and personal tragedies of its creator.

Scott was an obsessive collector of books, artefacts, weaponary and more, much of which can still be seen in the Abbotsford Collections.

But his home was his most treasured possession, its architecture and interior design made it an iconic building of the 19th century Scottish Baronial style, and it still remains a key site in the history of European Romanticism.

Scott was born in Edinburgh’s Old Town in 1771. His father was a successful lawyer, his mother the daughter of a Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University. He was descended from some of the oldest families of the Scottish Borders, and after suffering polio in 1773, was sent to his grandfather’s farm at Sandyknowe in Roxburghshire, below the historic Borders keep of Smailholm and looking over the Eildon Hills. Living there until 1775, and listening to stories from his grandfather and others, the young Scott developed his life-long love of Border history and folklore.

On returning to Edinburgh, he attended the High School and Edinburgh University. In 1792, he became an Advocate, and was appointed Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire in 1799. This allowed him to travel across Scotland in search of history and material to use in his poetry and fiction, eventually publishing his monumental Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders in 1802.

It was in the Borders that Scott was happiest and, after initially renting a cottage at Lasswade, he and his wife Charlotte moved into a more substantial country house at Ashestiel near Selkirk in 1804. It was there that he wrote the great epic poems The Lay of the Last Minstrel [ 1805 ] , Marmion [ 1808] and the Lady of the Lake [ 1810 ] With his fame, fortune and family growing, Scott turned to creating Abbotsford, which was completed in 1824.

Photographs by Irene Higgenbotham, taken on a visit to Abbotsford in 2015.

Photographs – Irene Higgenbotham. Keep warm & stay safe. 13th February 2021

When Haddington was covered in snow for several weeks. Today we have similar snowfall, but today I’m posting photos of Haddington in 2009/10

Photographs- Irene Higgenbotham 9th Feburary