Grand Opening!
Friday, October 19th, 2007
October, 2007
Stow celebrates 150 years and sees the opening of Cloudhouse
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007Southern Reporter www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk
STOW is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its town hall this weekend, writes Sally Gillespie.
And anticipation is high that The Stow Hat (pictured) will take pride of place during the two-day festivities.
The foundation stone was laid in February 1854. Local landowner Alexander Mitchell Innes gave the ground and paid the £1,000 to build the hall. Three years later, the former Grenadier Guard captain and Oxford graduate returned with his mother to open the new facility.
Villagers have lined up a variety of events to celebrate their hall, including a photograph exhibition, cheese and wine party, and a community fair. But perhaps the highlight will be the Saturday afternoon’s return of The Stow Hat to the village from Abbotsford. The 17th-century relic belonged to the burgessmen of Stow and was rescued by Sir Walter Scott – but not before the last man wearing it, Andrew Henderson from Lauder, cut a pair of soles for his slippers from the brim of it! The headpiece dates back to about 1690 when a Baillie of Regality ran local government in Stow. At installations, burgessmen had to wear the large cocked hat with a rim a foot broad, which became known as The Stow Hat’.
The historic headwear is likely to have been worn by the baillies during some of their duties such as taking people to court, collecting rent, gathering tolls, guarding fishing rights on rivers – and officiating at witch burnings.
The hat has been loaned to villagers for the anniversary and will be on display in the town hall.
The anniversary proclamation takes place at 2pm on Saturday and is followed by the community group fair (2.30-5pm) when local groups such as the football club, Wooplaw Community Woodland, Stow sports committee, Chernobyl Children Lifeline and others will be present.
In the evening, the Town Hall Soiree,
an informal musical evening including more than 22 local musicians, starts at 7.30pm, compered by John Wilkinson which will also include addresses by ‘the ghosts’ of Alexander Mitchell Innes and of Reverend Robertson speaking from 1857.
Tomorrow, the exhibition of old and new photographs of Stow, Fountainhall and surrounding area, memorabilia and maps opens at 2pm. The evening’s cheese and wine party is being hosted by Stow Pensioners Group and the evening will also include an opening party at the Cloudhouse Cafe with special guest Jeremy Purvis MSP.
The year after the hall was opened, Alexander Mitchell, who went on to become a Liberal MP, established a reading room and library, and supplied money, books and a daily copy of The Times.
The new hall preceded the new village of Stow by eight years – and Mr Mitchell Innes also went on to fund the building of the new parish church.