An internet photo of the Fairliehope area today. Rebecca West was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. Click on the title above for information about a book of her letters. Quoting from this website: "By April 1910, West had made her move to London, where she settled with her mother and sisters in the house they named Fairliehope." It seems that William Morris, a very famous designer of the Arts and Crafts movement, had popularized the name 'Fairliehope' after a farm in the Pentlands. West named her home in London 'Fairliehope, but in her walk to West Linton mentioned in the letter below, she doesn't say that they saw the farm. Our ancestor, James Forsyth, was a farmer 'of Farleyhope' in 1808, a hundred years earlier, and would have lived in a/the cottage on the Fairliehope farm.
To: Letitia Fairfield 24 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh 20 March 1910 My dear Cow, We are so sorry to hear that you are run down again! It will be good to be nearer you so that we can inspect you at more frequent intervals. It's very unfair that a fine Cow like you should be weakly. * I expect you have heard as much as we have about Fairliehope Cottage—I hope you like the name. If you don't you ought to be ashamed of yourself, because it is a most beautiful William Morris word and the name of a wonderful old farm on the Pentlands looking over towards the Clyde. Podge [Winifred Macleod] is planning to cut a garden—herbaceous borders, rosepoles, and such like. Mother's only stipulation is that there must be wallflowers, and I demand a lilac bush and almond tree, so she has a free hand. ............ * Yesterday Flora, Ada and I went a 15 mile walk. We trained to Balerno, walked along the Old Lanark Road and crossed over Carnwath Moor by Harperrig Reservoir, and climbed up to the pass between the East & West Cairn Hills. This is the Cauldstaneslap—the one in The Weir of Hermiston—a most awful wilderness of bare moors—1300 ft above sea level. We had to go rather out of our way, as we couldn't walk in the snow, which lay pretty thick on the mountains. The hills are about 2,000 ft, and in wild shapes. We walked for six miles without seeing a house, and in the whole 15 miles only met 2 people. When we got to West Linton—which is a lovely place, in the prettiest part of Peebleshire,—we found that the benevolent railway company insisted on us leaving at 4.45 or not at all till 8 o'clock. So—as the station is 2 miles from the village—we couldn't have tea. For 1/6 the N. B. R. gave us 2 hrs of travelling including half an hour's repose at a station, dropped, for some reason, beside a couple of cottages. No stuffing anywhere, and we'd wolfed all our sandwiches among the mountains! The dear child did wonders when it returned to the bosom of its fambly [sic]! The bother is that my left leg is quite lame today. I don't know if its possible, but I feel as if that burn had affected it. It's been queer ever since. ............. Your loving Baby West, R., MSS
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