Wormanbie/Warmanbie was a Carruthers estate located in Annandale, belonging to a Cadet branch off Holmains, dating back to the 1500’s.
In her book, published in Annan in 1846, the author, a local historian and poet named Miss E Allen of Lowthertown wrote a beautiful poem relating to the Wormanbie estate, which obviously touched her heart on her travels. The book was called The Beauties of the Border, being a description of the Principal Gentleman’s Residences in Cumberland, Annandale, Nithsdale, Galloway and Ayrshire. The book was published after the fincial disater of Holmain, and the death of John 12th on 1809.
Nothing much is known about the author other than she came from Lowthertown, which was a hamlet in southern Dumfriesshire, lying immediately north of Eastriggs and 10 miles southeast of Dumfries itself.
This information was sent to me by a historian and genealogist friend in Annan who thought we would like the poem of Warmanbie. This piece was mentioned in the author’s book as a Principal Gentlemans Residence and covered her area of interest. The house, which was occupied at the time by Alexander Carruthers esq gives us an inkling of Wormanbie through the eyes of someone who saw it in the early to mid 1800’s and was moved enough to write a poem about it.
WARMANBIE, THE SEAT OF ALEXANDER CARRUTHERS, ESQ.
by Miss E Allen
In the bosom of yon woods and groves,
Intransparent beauty does majestic stand,
Where noble Carruthers there does rove,
The ever trusty friend of man.
These sylvan scenes in grandeur rise,
Infolding arms o’er thy limpid stream,
And Warmanbie in thy bosom lies,
’Mongst shading groves of living green.
From the bosom of the shady groves,
Where sighing zephyrs have their home,
The mansion points his seat of love,
Where Annan murm’ring sighs along.
See the painted skirting meads,
Through woods and groves and flowerygreen,
Through splendid courts and lovely glades.
And Warmanbie, a bewitching scene.
See all the beauties at gloaming e’en,
Does list the music through the brake,
In Summer’s eve so sweet serene,
Unfading love ne’er to forsake.
The fairest flowers that tripped the plain, Through Warmanbie’s sequestered bowers, No more within the courts are seen, They’ve bid farewell to these fleeting hours. They’ve bid farewell to fair Britain’s isle, And Annan’s pure and purple stream, Where there she lisped her infant smile, With paternal care a precious gem. Far to yon distant sunny clime, With her noble Dirom o’er ocean deep, And weary wilderness in prose and rhyme, With Arabian coursers wild and fleet.
From Annan’s sylvan groves of green, Where flows the pure and purple tide; No lovelier flower on its banks were sen, Nor a more lovely virtuous bride.
Ah! list the sound from Cumbria’s groves!
Death’s iron hand the summons given;
Oblivion’s blast has cropped the rose,
And all its beauteous leaves have shriven
As a Catagory B listed building with Historic Environment Scotland, a description of the house is as follows:
Circa 1820-1830. Greek revival 2-storey small mansion (now a hotel), with symmetrical 3-bay elevations; low service court to the East probably circa 1840. Polished red ashlar with plain unmargined windows with projecting cills (sashes, mostly with 12-pane glazing pattern). Enclosed porch central on the Southern elevation with 2 widely-spaced baseless and unfluted Tuscancolumns with doors (front door a modern replacement), flank doors in unusual (apparently original) ashlar screens linking columns with Pilasters. 2-window bowed central bay to the West and 2 blind 1st floor windows, one ground floor window now a glazed door.
The Eastern elevation has shallow advanced and pedimented inner bay with semi-circular light in tympanum. Cornice and blocking course over all elevations. Piended and platform slated and leaded roof with 2 pairs symmetrically placed stacks with ashlar flues.
Courtyard formed by 2 low wings; S elevation faced with stugged ashlar with coping (concealed lean-to roof) raised over outer bays and gabled over window.
Interior: central cantilevered stair with wrought-iron balusters below cupola; some decorative and moulded cornice plasterwork; marble chimneypieces, that in NW ground floor room (dining room) black marble with thin Greek Doric columns; fitted recessed book-shelves in ground floor South West room.
Sadly the estate was sold by Alexander Carruthers, who went by the name of David, and having no male issue sold the esate in 1858 to provide for his four daughters. Alexander remained on the estate as a tenant of the buyer, but it must have been a marvelous place to behold and difficult to give up. Wormanbie made up part of the core territory of Carruthers and it remains a recognised historic site in Annandale.
The estate, under Holmains superiority and in a similar vein to the Holmains estate itself, occupied fertile riverside ground and valuable agricultural land and was strategically positioned, covering important crossing points and routes into England. A valuable asset for any border family.
Carruthers had many estates in Annandale, with only Dormont remaining. Yet the buildings in some cases still stand, Rammerscales springing instantly to mind. Holmains, which was the seat of the Carruther’s Chiefs and sat north west of Annan, no longer stands.
This clever planting of layered Carruthers estates clearly shows the way our family dominated Annandale through cadet branches of our name. These estates, each owned by ‘junior’ Lairds controlled large expanses of lands under the name and influence of Carruthers. It was this process through their land ownership, that allowed us as a family to easily transform from a reiver clan kinship group, into being accepted as a highly respectable landed family in rural Dumfriesshire society, after the Union of the Crowns.
