Ormiston

Ormiston was the home of the poet Elizabeth Douglas (died 1594), wife of Samuel Cockburn of Templehall, who with Mary Beaton contributed sonnets to a work by the poet William Fowler in 1587. Fowler wrote an epitaph for her. James VI came to Ormiston to hunt deer on 22 November 1588, and returned to Biel and Ormiston to hunt in October 1599. The "model village" was laid out in 1736 by the new laird John Cockburn who had inherited the estate from his uncle, who had died without a male heir. William Begg, Robert Burns's nephew became the parish schoolmaster at Ormiston. The whole Begg family moved to live with him at Ormiston's schoolhouse. Isabella Begg née Burns also ran a school here. The…

The village consists mainly of a broad Main Street, with a row of mostly two storey houses along each side. It crosses two bridges, one over the now redundant railway route, and the other a narrow bridge over the river Tyne. Using strict guidelines for its appearance, John Cockburn put housing for artisans and cottage industries (spinning and weaving) around the original mill hamlet. When he did not achieve the expected return on his investment, he sold it to the Earl of Hopetoun in 1747. The linen trade became a failure, and by 1811 the distillery shut down. A brewery and one of Scotland's first bleachfields were also built here as well. Ormiston later became a mining village. The Ormiston…