Caravan trip to Hoddom Castle - In search of Bell roots

For our 1st excursion with our little tourer we decided to visit Hoddom Castle, a site John had used before and knew was fine.

We set out yesterday morning with our two boys and collected the caravan from storage. 

After an uneventful journey we arrived here at around 1.30 and began the mammoth task of unloading the car and finding homes for all the paraphernalia we obviously thought was essential for our new home from home. However, we underestimated the size and overestimated our needs and had to leave a lot in the car!

The weather was fine and the boys appreciated their new surroundings before a shower of rain started. It faired up in time for the short walk across to the bar for a nightcap.

Saturday morning was dry but cloudy and we set off in search of clues to my Bell roots. I knew that my great grandfather Thomas Bell was born near our site in Tinwald and that his family had lived in Dalbeattie shortly before they moved to South Shields so we started in Dalbeattie with a visit to the museum, I wanted to know if there was an obvious reason for the move and the guys there were interested but could offer no explanation. 

I knew the address where they lived in 1881 and checked but the original house had been replaced, hopefully the one I pictured could have been similar.

What I did see in the town was a butcher named Carson [the maiden name of Thomas' mother]

Our next site of interest was a house by the road out of Dumfries where Thomas' father, Samuel Bell, had worked as stable boy when he was 18. The address was listed as Curriestanes and it seems it still is.

Finally we went to Tinwald near Dumfries, the birth place of Samuel. I know from the census that at 5 years old he was living with his maternal aunt's Kirkpatrick family so can only assume that his parents had died. Another researcher has posted a photo of a gravestone belonging to a number of this family and said it was taken in Tinwald churchyard. By the time we started looking the rain had returned and we couldn't locate more but got the one I was looking for.

A New Chapter Begins "A Hoos wi Wheels"

Now we've bought a second hand tourer we're set for a different sort of holiday.

For the past few weeks we've been buying bits and bobs to kit out our new home on wheels; from essential items like a gas bottle, water roller and kitchen items, to touches that make it our home from home, a TV, card games, jigsaws and puzzles and rugs and, of course, beds for our two lodgers, Max and Paddy.

Our first trip is booked and we're off to Hoddam Castle site in Dumfriesshire on 6th April to get to know our caravan and hopefully do some research on my Bell ancestors who moved, as a family, from Dalbeattie in Kirkcudbright to South Shields, sometime between 1881 and '84. Let's hope the weather is kind!