The Fallago Trust has just announced that it is making a major financial grant to the Hume Castle Preservation Trust  for it to undertake the first archaeological excavations ever carried out at Hume Castle.

Furthermore, we are also awaiting news in a few weeks of what we hope will be a further major grant which will make a three-year programme of discovery possible for the first time ever.

Hume Castle and its surrounding land has recently been given “scheduled” status by Historic Environment Scotland.

The current planning is for this archaeological programme to start around the timing of the  2018 Clan Home Gathering in the area, so that those who have supported the Trust over the Years can get a first hand understanding of what is to be carried out and the expected findings that they hope to uncover based on the Survey flown over and around the castle.

Photo Arran Johnston

Photo Arran Johnston

FRIDAY 1^st SEPTEMBER – 3^rd SEPTEMBER

LIGHTING THE BORDERS | Scottish Borders Heritage Festival Opening Event

‘Lighting the Borders’ is a Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology Signature Event.

To open this year’s Scottish Borders Heritage Festival (#BHeritageF17) we plan to illuminate the Scottish Borders landscape with light, story, performance and song.

To re-enact the lighting of signal fires, 25+ historic sites will be illuminated across the Scottish Borders. Eleven performances that reflect our historic and cultural diversity have been programmed at a range of historic sites. We will use a variety of lighting to form a chain across the landscape at dusk on each evening. All buildings in the sequence will be colour washed or highlighted in blue for 3 nights from the 1^st to 3^rd September.

Follow the chain of light at these sites:  Aikwood Tower, Ayton Castle, Bowhill House, Coldstream Community Centre, Duns Castle, Duns Law, Duns Parish Church, Eyemouth Fort, Fatlips Castle, Floors Castle, Gunsgreen House, Hermitage Castle, Hume Castle, Jedburgh Abbey, Jedburgh Castle Jail, Kelso Abbey, Kelso Town Hall, Mary Queen of Scots House, Melrose Abbey, Neidpath Castle, Newark Castle, Old Parish & St Paul’s Church, Peniel Heugh, Riddell Tower, Smailholm Tower, Stobs Camp and Thirlestane Castle.

SATURDAY 2^nd SEPTEMBER

LIGHTING THE BORDERS | Hume Castle

‘The Road to Pinkie’ #1 – Medieval re-enactment, Storytelling, Living History and Tour

13:00 – 21:00 Hume Castle, Hume, Greenlaw, Berwickshire, TD5 7TR

Tel: 01573 410743 | Entry:  Free (Collection for donations)

Join us at Hume Castle for a day of living history, storytelling and song!  Come and see the Kelso Laddie, Greenlaw Maid and entourage ride in on horseback  to open the event at 13:00 followed by an afternoon of re-enactment and living history with the Lothian Levy to include living history camp, drill training, skirmishes and the representation of the castle’s fortunes in the Rough Wooing. See Lady Hume’s surrender on the battlements and the Hume Banner (Marchmont Standard) flaunted for the first time in many centuries! Other highlights include: Archaeological Walk and Tour with Piers Dixon, Hog Roast, Medieval Food, Smailholm Singers, Northumbrian and Scottish Pipers, Poetry, Storytelling and Music. This event is the first of three precursors to the Battle of Pinkie re-enactment.

Planning for the Clan Home Gathering August 2018 is under way.

The committee has proposed a plan for the Gathering including events associated with the Coldstream Civic week prior to the gathering weekend and some items associated with the Edinburgh Festival and other items that Edinburgh has to offer.

Below are two documents that we would like Home/Hume descendants, Clan Home Association members, past current and prospective to consider and to provide feedback that will help us further and or adjust planning.

It is your gathering and so we really appreciate your frank input.

The first document is a flyer outlining the gathering and the second is a survey which outlines proposed events and accommodations along with some budgetary information.

Please click on and read the following flyer.

CLAN HOME GATHERING 2018

Please click on the following survey. This will open up a PDF document (if you have not already done so you may be requested to down load a PDF reader)

This survey contains some fields in which to enter a name, some numbers in your party that you believe will or may attend and a series of check boxes to indicate those events that you may like to attend. i.e. these can be entered online within the document. (please add a note to the comments section as to how certain your attendance might be, e.g. definitely, probably, possible.

The completed form can be saved to your computer and the information you provided will be embedded within the document.  If you have the Adobe software for reading PDF files – see below – How to fill out the form! you will be offered a chance on the form to “submit” this will ask you to enter your email address and your email application and will email this back to the membership email and you will be done.
If you don’t have the software please download the form – fill it in and completed survey to membership@clan-home.org

Member Survey

How to fill out the survey form

Thank you

Clan Home Gathering 2018 – organising committee

The Hume Castle Preservation Trust has purchased a plot of land adjacent to the castle below which an aerial survey has shown the existence of buildings and walls that supported the people who lived at the castle.

Gos Home who has been leading our efforts to secure this land has provided the following information

“Plot 8 adjoins our existing 6 acres to its south and this neatly joins up the rest of the land on which stood the homes of the villagers. We now know that many of those houses still stand to an unknown height along with gardens, wells adjoining roadways or paths. The village is thought to have had a much larger population than today’s village perhaps as many as 800 compared with today at just 40.

After Cromwell’s Colonels in 1651 under Col. Fenwick destroyed Home castle as it then was and Home village it lay as ruins until the then Earl of Home sold the land to Hugh Hume, the Earl of Marchmont in 1790. He carried out a restoration of the castle as a folly and helped create today’s village of Hume. The spelling changed.

The further restoration of the Castle and the sale of land surrounding it to Clan Home took place early this century and the recent discovery by Dr Piers Dixon by using drone photography that the original village still lies beneath the grass has sparked off these exciting fresh developments. The acquisition of Plot 8 will enable proper excavation to start for the first time in 365 years.”

The next steps in progressing this project will be to secure monies to fund the excavation of this land. A long-term objective is to facilitate an information and education centre where visitors to the Castle can learn about the Castle, the families that owned and worked the area and the various historical events surrounding their lives in those earlier times.

Below is a parcel boundary map showing the location of parcel 8.

An aerial view of the Castle can be accessed via

http://www.clan-home.org/aerial-video-of-hume-castle/

Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday: Beacons lit amid UK celebrations.

The Queen has lit the first of more than 900 beacons lighting up across the UK and overseas as part of her 90th birthday celebrations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36093306

Dr Piers Dixon who is the Operations Manager, Survey and Recording for the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland has provided the Home Clan with this YouTube link to a video shot as part of their investigations of Hume Castle which included an aerial survey using CyberHawke (http://www.thecyberhawk.com). There have been a raft of photos taken which with analysis will reveal a picture of Hume of old, showing features that are now covered by the current landscape.  We look forward to seeing a great deal more in the future.