Heronhill

A Memory of Hawick.

Heronhill , off Weensland Road was the mansion house where there was a boarding school for about fifty four girls and a few very small boys. The school was called St Helen's, between 1945 and 1949. The headmistress and owner was Miss Jean Macdonald; I went to school there. There were stables off the main drive which were filled by horses and ponies supplied by Rogerson of Selkirk who bought and sold horses and so needed the extra stable space. Some of us lucky ones got riding lessons. The old house still had some of its original late Victorian wall paper, and those toilets that have an all-wooden surround and you pull up a lever beside the seat to flush through a trap door inside the bowl. There was gas lighting throughout, and coal fires in the big grates. We did like rising early while still dark in winter dark to muck out the stables because we did love the horses. Senior girls were allowed to explore the grounds including the pond. Some went for a dook among the leeches. The lane above the pond used to be very pretty in the Spring with its hawthorn.
Heronhill was burned down after the school closed, and the ground and basement were used for a woollen mill.

The cornet of 1945 was, I think, called Charlie Bell.


Added 13 September 2013

#242626

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