. Biggar and the House of Fleming: an account of the Biggar district, archaeological, historical, and biographical. d in thebarn. On one side of the fire was the swee, a woodenapparatus for suspending pots or kettles above the fire, andlowering or elevating them according to the amount of heatthat was required. Near the swee generally sat the gudemanin the winter nights, conversing with the wanderers seatedbehind the fire, overlooking the industrial occupations of theyounger members of the family, or enjoying their amusements,the telling of stories, the reciting of ballads, the singing ofsongs
. Biggar and the House of Fleming: an account of the Biggar district, archaeological, historical, and biographical. d in thebarn. On one side of the fire was the swee, a woodenapparatus for suspending pots or kettles above the fire, andlowering or elevating them according to the amount of heatthat was required. Near the swee generally sat the gudemanin the winter nights, conversing with the wanderers seatedbehind the fire, overlooking the industrial occupations of theyounger members of the family, or enjoying their amusements,the telling of stories, the reciting of ballads, the singing ofsongs, &c. The kitchen was furnished with a press or awmory, in which bread, meal, and other articles of food BIGGAR SCHOOLS, &C. 323 ?were kept; and above it stood a rack or shelf with a largearray of cogs, bickers, wooden trenchers, and pewter plates,flanked with a spoon creel on the one side, and a pint stoop ortwo on the other. As a specimen of the fire-place of a kitchenat the time of which we speak, we give a wood-cut of one atthe Highfield, a farm-house in the parish of Coulter, belongingto Mr The kitchen had very often a communication with the byre,stable, and barn, by a door in the gable, and thus the familycould attend to the cows and horses without going out ofdoors. It was nothing uncommon for persons in cot-houses,and even in the town of Biggar, to live under the same roofwith a cow and a horse, and to enter by the same door, theonly division between the quadrupeds and the family beinggenerally a close or box bed. The dung was piled by the sideof the door, or at least in close proximity to the could be more opposed to the sanitary arrrangementsnow in vogue than this state of things, and yet the inmateswere generally hale and healthy, and lived to a goodly oldage. The farmer himself took a share in all the hard labour ofthe farm, ploughing, sowing, hoeing, reaping, stacking, thrash-ing, &c, and in fact, set an example of industry which theother mem
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookpublisheredinb, bookyear1867
