Deposition – Mathew Martin – 28 Nov 1757

Mathew Martin, aged 100 years and upwards, of White Ouston in Whitfield Parish, who had given up his farm to his sons and now lived with them as a lodger, remembered the peats of Allendale tenants being burnt, and the impounding of an Allendale tenant’s sheep, after which ‘they were never again troubled’ with them. MM had been hired to plough a new Hawkuplee inclosure north of Powstile Burn about sixty years ago (1690s).

He was with Mathew Whitfield, Lord of the Manor about 25 years ago (c.1732) at a boundary riding, when ‘Mr Whitfield and his Tenants met Mr Blackett and his Company at the Hardrigg Currock and there this examinant being the next but one or two to Mr Whitfield, heard him discharge Mr Blackett from riding beyond the Hardrigg Currock into [his] Boundary, but notwithstanding such discharge, they rode up to the Long Cross. He was present when they came into Millstones Bottom and heard Mr Blackett ask to whom the Millstones House belonged and some of the Company said it belonged to Squire Whitfield upon which Mr Blackett said “Then we must be wrong” or words to that effect.

One Allgood, Mr Blackett’s Steward, ordered the whole hedge near the Dyke Nook to be pulled down, and was about to pull it down but several of the Whitfield Tenants with Sticks went to oppose them, upon which both the Lords interposed and said they would not have it decided by Club Law, and so made the People quiet.’