Ye're aye welcome tae some Mindless (but guid natured) Midlothian Banter! Jist leave yer brains by the door and ye'll fit in nicely. We've goat chat 'n' quizzes 'n' hist'ry 'n' puzzles 'n' pitchers 'n' a' sorts. Some of us speak quite good English, too.
What do you know? What would you like to know? This forum is for anything which interests you, and might interest others - mainly the history of Midlothian and other parts of Scotland.
I still can't see a name on the plaque --- even when it's enlarged (make note -- see optician on Monday).
That is the old Buttercup right enough and I can see where the replacement glass has been put in, in place of the cow's head. It was getting to be quite tatty but I wish now I had taken a photo of it.
I wonder if the full picture looked like this at one time ---
I'd been hoping you were going to come in and tell us all about the origins of the name "Harper's Brae", Spry!
Oh well . . . is the plaque fixed to the shop, or a house? If it's the shop - maybe it might be worth asking the owner if he or she knows anything about it?
The name and date are near the bottom of the plaque, on a sort of banner device. It occurred to me, looking at the thing again, that it had been pinned up somewhere in the past - hence all the nail holes - and it looks as though it has been whitewashed at some stage.
I wonder what it's made of, underneath the paint - and whether there is more detail visible too. Not that I would suggest surreptitiously sanding it down in the middle of the night or anything! I just wondered whether the name, for example, had been partly filled in with paint.
Must remember to have a look at some old maps presently, and see if I can work out how old Harper's Brae might be.
Oddly enough there was a photo of Mrs. B. Garrad of the (original) Howgate Inn in the same group, which I thought odd until I remembered that her Christian name was Buttercup!
Scran - 'Buttercup' Garrad - for e-mail.jpg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
I typed in 'Harper's Brae' but all I got was a photo of Southbank House that I submitted ages ago. I can put it in again but I'll have to run it through Photoshop.
All is not lost if you don't get as many hits as you expect. For example I know from the last time I was a subscriber that there is at least one photo of Harper's Brae Gala. Depends on how they're classified (who would have thought there would have been one of a room in the old Howgate Inn, under 'Buttercup'!)
