Current Developments

February 2020 - Work commences

In the middle of February, work began on clearing the spruce plantation from the grounds around the old house.  By the end of the month, a huge swathe of land to the east of the house had been cleared, as had the valley and hillside immediately to the south.  This has resulted in the building becoming much more visible, and a veritable storm of facebook chatter on the Denholm Village and Hawick facebook pages revealed that the opinions of the local populace were fairly evenly split on whether the development is a good thing or a bad thing.  Many who know the area, however, expressed some real concern about the future of the older trees on the estate, notable the old yews and ancient hardwoods which line the path down into Hallow Dene.  We can only hope that these may be protected by Tree Preservation Orders, and will go on to become features of the grounds as the work progresses.

March 6th 2020 - The trees continue to fall.

Walks up around the house reveal that more and more of the trees are coming down. The house is now visible from the avenue leading to the house, and from the road that leads to Midgard, as well as being clearly visible from the fields to the south.  Sadly, the popular dog walking track, up through Hallowdene wood to the house, has been somewhat spoiled by the fact that the track close to the house has been pretty much obliterated by the process of dragging the logs from the site to the nearby field from where they are collected for transport.  It's a shame, as this was a lovely walk, however we can only hope that the path  might be reinstated in some manner once the works have been completed.  It is, though, private property, so we'll just have to see, and accept, what happens !  The photos below, taken by Will Roberts this morning, show just how the phoenix is rising from the ashes.  It looks pretty majestic !