PWF Interviews

Our Place, Work & Folk interview recordings collection

During the 18 months this project was active, we built up and developed a great deal of material relating to the history of the farmhouse, its occupants and the people who lived in the surrounding area. A central element of this was meeting with and recording a great many people who were able to share their memories of Bridgend farmhouse and the surrounding area.

Special thanks must go to our many magnificent volunteers, without whom we could not have achieved a fraction of this.

We have showcased some of the interviews below, and will add more soon. The full extensive collection of recorded interviews can be listened to on SoundCloud here, with some of those in collections here
We also put together some snippets of interviews in 2018 which includes Niddrie Mill Primary School children's response to visiting the Farmhouse – this soundloop is here.

Margaret Lowrey's recollections of working at Dickson's Nursery and memorable local characters. Margaret has been one of the great finds of our oral history project, and has written a piece for our publication, 'Place, Work and Folk' (2019)

Johnni Stanton is a former actor and producer with the Craigmillar Festival Society, who grew up in Craigmillar and knew Bridgend Farm well in his youth.
‘This was my territory. It was for the imagination and I loved it.’

Anne and Rosslyn McDonald are relatives of Doris Darling, and visited the farmhouse regularly over the years.
‘I first knew Bridgend when I got engaged to Doris’s brother in March 1969. And that was the first time I had been.

Annette MacBeath has worked at Inch Community Centre for the last 18 years, 13 of those as a youth worker and the remainder offering janitorial cover.

A key informant for Bridgend’s history and an early supporter of the restoration , the late George Henderson shared unique and vital memories of the community in which he was born and remained all his days. George was born in 1943 at 17 Bridgend Cottages.

Dougie Barnett and Amanda Montgomery, who moved into one of the neighbouring cottages in the early 1990’s, reflect on how rural the area still was even then.
"you woke up hearing cows mooing in the field"

Frances McCormack (née Campbell) Frances was brought up in Bridgend Cottages and lived there till she got married at 22. She has memories of the farm and the Bridgend community.

Stenhouse Family Memories