Entryfoot and Mosshouses, Torphichen

[TraceyK]

That sounds great.  Have a great day Glennis!
sincerely, Tracey

[etherdancer]

Hello Again,
The village library/museum in Blackridge was open today and I managed to do a lot of reading.  The family Graham is mentioned quite a few times in the local historical text of this area as is Bedlormie House and Mosshouse farm.

I have discovered that Mosshouse Farm is the farm, located right next door to me and can confirm it is still a working farm.  Next time I go walking my dogs on the Moors, I will take a photo of it as the vantage point from there is much better than from the road.

All my reading turned up only little snippets in many, many books.  There were some old photos in the museum of Entryfoot etc.  but nothing that I could copy for you. 

I did discern from the librarian that there is a central office that holds all the historical info and photos of this area and have some contact details for you.

Sybil Cavanagh
localhistory@westlothian.gov.uk
or visit www.westlothian.gov.uk and click on libraries then select local studies.

Hope this takes you a bit further along your geneology search.
Kind regards
Glennis

[TraceyK]

Thankyou Glennis for all your hard work.  I've been out of town the last two days and just got your posting.  I can't wait to contact the local history centre there.  This is so great!
Tracey

[etherdancer]

Hello Tracey, I hope you were successful with the info I passed on!
On another note, I had a visit from a gentleman whose grandparents came from Mosshouses Farm.  They emigrated to Canada in 1925 and he is trying to trace them.  His grandfather was called Joe John Nelson and his grandmother was Meg Middleton.  Are these names that you have come across in your research??

I hope you can help as he seemed such a nice man!!!

Kind Regards
Glennis

[TraceyK]

Hello Glennis,
Your visitor's family must have taken over the tenancy of Mosshouses Farm after our Graham's gave it up sometime between 1861-1871.  They relocated to Lanarkshire after that.  I have not come across the Nelson or Middleton families in connection to ours before.  I just went back over the census pages that I had saved for Torphichen between 1841 and 1891, but could not find those names mentioned either.  But I did not download all the pages, just those for my family past the 1841 entries.

Best of luck to him in his search....the Scotlandspeople website is still his best bet.
Tracey

[meaden]

Hi Tracey,
I'm also related to the Graham family from Mosshouses. I'm keen to share what I know.
Bye
Julie

[Pollard]

Hi,
found your posts during my search for the Pollard and Denholm side of my family.
I know that in 1884 my great uncle Robert Pollard who died in WW1 was born at Entryfoot.

So it was very interesting for me to see the cottages which remain, have hit a brick wall with the Pollards as they spent tim in Nova Scotia Canada, where  my GGGF was born in 1820, coming 'home' to Scotland, settling and having a family in the Torphicen/Armadale area, he lived till he was 79/80 years of age, now buried in Shotts cemetry.   

Any further info much appreciated...
Sheila

[TraceyK]

Hello Sheila,
I haven't found anymore information on Entryfoot since Glennis's posts. She really helped a lot with this one. It's so amazing having someone right there to talk to the present owner.

Reading on the Arthur family website, baptism records for Janet Graham Arthur's children always referred to their home as "Bedlormie Entryfoot" since these cottages were on the grounds of the Bedlormie estate.
This was in the 1830-1850s. In John Graham's will dated 1852, he mentions that land had been owned by a Sir Thomas Livingstone. of West Quarter and Bedlormie Baronet.

You have probably already searched it, but have you tried the Nova Scotia archives https://www.novascotiagenealogy.com/ResultsPage.aspx there appears to be a lot of Pollards there in the vitals. I haven't done much searching in Nova Scotia, so don't have much to suggest there.

Sincerely, Tracey