I am not sure when Brux was built, nor when the owners left, but judging from the things I found and the state of the building itself, I rekon it’s been left lying empty and decaying since the 1980’s.
This has got to be one of the scariest places I’ve been.
I was warned to watch myself as the floorboards were a little bit dodgy, but oh my god, holes everywhere and not the best when all I have is a head torch with dying battery.
I ended up using my tripod like a blind man’s stick trailing along the floor ahead of me looking out for holes.
The house itself is stripped, apart from one room.. where the secret lies.
I could have spent hours there reading old letters, newspaper cuttings, etc, then for some reason I looked up at the roof. I flashed my camera several times, tried to take a photo and look at it, but it wasn’t clicking ….. basically the roof above me was still intact but looked like someone had jumped on it on the 1st floor like a trampoline and the whole thing was away to collapse on me. I freaked out, grabbed my tripod and walked along a beam on the floor like I was a gymnast! Below me was only about ½ meter gap but it was dark and your mind plays tricks and it was windy and what not. Oh dear!
I found many letters and they were addressed to Sir Ewan Forbes. Alir 147 had previously been and dug up the dirt on this so I knew who he was. After some more googling last night the story gets better!
†There is nothing quite like British baronets; they are not members of the peerage, yet they are definitely members of the upper class. One old definition has it that "a baronet is one who has ceased to be a gentleman but has not become a nobleman." That particular axiom required some revision as of last week. For Britain's newest baronet, Sir Ewan Forbes of Brux, eleventh of his line, began life as a girl. “
YES!! Ewan Forbes began his life as a girl … I imagine back in those days, it made quite a story.
“1912, when Sir Ewan was born, registered a female and baptized Elizabeth. As he grew up, Elizabeth became more and more convinced that he was, in fact, male. "It was hell," he recalled in a 1952 interview, "especially when I was forced to attend the debutante balls during my first London season." By the time he left his Scottish home to study medicine, he had cropped his hair and begun to wear male clothing. But officially, it was as a woman that he took his degree and went into general practice in Scotland. At age 40, he decided he had had enough.
He re-registered his birth, as male, and a month later married his housekeeper."
“In 1965, when his brother died, he began his battle to inherit the baronetcy. As the nearest male relative, he seemed entitled to press the claim. But a cousin, 40-year-old John Forbes-Sem-pill, contested the succession, asserting that he was the rightful heir because Sir Ewan had been registered as female at birth and females cannot inherit baronetcies. "My client," Sir Ewan's counsel retorted, "has been male since birth. He was wrongly registered as a female." Earlier this year, an Edinburgh court accepted Sir Ewan's arguments, and last week Home Secretary James Callaghan settled the matter by ordering that Sir Ewan's name be placed on the official roll of baronets.â€
Sir Ewan Forbes died in 1991.
On with my photos … they are not the best, but this house certainly holds a great deal of local history =]
Supporting beams ... they looked relativley new.
:
The Scotsman Newspaper, 1962
This has got to be one of the scariest places I’ve been.
I was warned to watch myself as the floorboards were a little bit dodgy, but oh my god, holes everywhere and not the best when all I have is a head torch with dying battery.
I ended up using my tripod like a blind man’s stick trailing along the floor ahead of me looking out for holes.
The house itself is stripped, apart from one room.. where the secret lies.
I could have spent hours there reading old letters, newspaper cuttings, etc, then for some reason I looked up at the roof. I flashed my camera several times, tried to take a photo and look at it, but it wasn’t clicking ….. basically the roof above me was still intact but looked like someone had jumped on it on the 1st floor like a trampoline and the whole thing was away to collapse on me. I freaked out, grabbed my tripod and walked along a beam on the floor like I was a gymnast! Below me was only about ½ meter gap but it was dark and your mind plays tricks and it was windy and what not. Oh dear!
I found many letters and they were addressed to Sir Ewan Forbes. Alir 147 had previously been and dug up the dirt on this so I knew who he was. After some more googling last night the story gets better!
†There is nothing quite like British baronets; they are not members of the peerage, yet they are definitely members of the upper class. One old definition has it that "a baronet is one who has ceased to be a gentleman but has not become a nobleman." That particular axiom required some revision as of last week. For Britain's newest baronet, Sir Ewan Forbes of Brux, eleventh of his line, began life as a girl. “
YES!! Ewan Forbes began his life as a girl … I imagine back in those days, it made quite a story.
“1912, when Sir Ewan was born, registered a female and baptized Elizabeth. As he grew up, Elizabeth became more and more convinced that he was, in fact, male. "It was hell," he recalled in a 1952 interview, "especially when I was forced to attend the debutante balls during my first London season." By the time he left his Scottish home to study medicine, he had cropped his hair and begun to wear male clothing. But officially, it was as a woman that he took his degree and went into general practice in Scotland. At age 40, he decided he had had enough.
He re-registered his birth, as male, and a month later married his housekeeper."
“In 1965, when his brother died, he began his battle to inherit the baronetcy. As the nearest male relative, he seemed entitled to press the claim. But a cousin, 40-year-old John Forbes-Sem-pill, contested the succession, asserting that he was the rightful heir because Sir Ewan had been registered as female at birth and females cannot inherit baronetcies. "My client," Sir Ewan's counsel retorted, "has been male since birth. He was wrongly registered as a female." Earlier this year, an Edinburgh court accepted Sir Ewan's arguments, and last week Home Secretary James Callaghan settled the matter by ordering that Sir Ewan's name be placed on the official roll of baronets.â€
Sir Ewan Forbes died in 1991.
On with my photos … they are not the best, but this house certainly holds a great deal of local history =]
Supporting beams ... they looked relativley new.
:
The Scotsman Newspaper, 1962
