Foulis: 300 years ago...
January - February
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Woodhall House incorporated elements of older buildings.
In 1700 Sir John Foulis moved into Woodhall House from Ravelston. He kept meticulous accounts from then until his death in the summer of 1707 at the age of 69 and these give us fascinating insight into his life and that of the "Big House" of what was to become Juniper Green. These accounts were published in 1894 by the Scottish History Society.
Like many of us Sir John tried to set his financial affairs in order in the New Year, receiving rents from his paper mill on the Water of Leith and buying quires and reams of paper from them for his stern letters to the very late-paying "waulkers" in the cloth mill (probably the one at Mossy Mill).
He was also inspired to take some exercise for in January 1703 he bought three golf balls and loaned 3 clubs at Leith for a game with his friends (and a mighty good liquid lunch after!)
For the gardeners among us it is interesting to note that he was buying seeds for his vegetable garden: things like beetroot, leeks, onions, "colleflour" radish, sugar peas, parsley and lettuce which we can recognise and Indian cress, turkey beans, purpie and haistines which we may not. He bought them four or five draps at a time (a drap was about ten ounces) so he was cultivating quite a good patch. He also expected his family to take root in Woodhall for Sir John bought 100 chestnuts and 100 walnuts and then in 1704 a mutchkin (about a pint) of Spanish nuts to "set". He was obviously thinking long-term.
Selected from entries for January and February in Sir John Foulis's Account Books.