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Wynnefield  - a desirable rented home

Although John Clay and his wife Patricia Thomson lived at Wynnefield for much of their married life, and the valuation rolls show a John Clay as the tenant of Wynnefield until at least 1892, the family were no longer living there by 1868, when they were resident in Sprouston in Roxburgh.  The farmer's house was not occupied by another farmer until around 1897 when James Fleming took over the tenancy.  Instead, the house seems to have been let to a series of families. Interestingly, the Valuation Rolls show John Clay and John Clay junior as the occupants.

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The 1871 census shows Lt Col Robert Church (born abt 1829 in Malacca Straits Settlements) and his wife Sarah (born abt 1845 in Penang Straits Settlements) in residence, together with Mary Dodds (cook), Margaret McGregor (housemaid) and Mary E. Tait (tablemaid). Thomas Mabon, son of the farm steward, is shown as being a coachman who may possibly have worked for the Churches.

The 1881 census does not show anybody resident in the farmhouse.  However, the 1880 death certificate of Margaret, daughter of Robert Stewart, paper manufacturer, and Ann Wilson Clay shows their residence to be Winfield.  Ann Clay was, of course, the daughter of the farm tenant of Whitfield.

By the time of the 1891 census,  Winfield was let to Julia C.O. Robertson of Edinburgh.  She's shown as having three servants also resident.  Mary Gray McCandie was a housekeeper, Elizabeth S. Watt was a cook and Mary I. McK. Watt was a housemaid.  However, this situation was not quite as simple as it first appears.  There is a death certificate dated 8 October 1891 for Mary Townsend Vane-Tempest, widow of Lord Ernest Vane-Tempest, at Winfield.  The poor woman died of influenza (two months), mental derangement from weakness, weak heart, and paralysis (five months eight days).
Julia Cecilia Ogilvy Robertson was born on the 20 October 1845 in Edinburgh.  She was the daughter of Duncan Stewart Robertson and Harriet Ann Mary Ogilvy, who had been married in 1844 in Brighton.  In the 1881 census, Julia is to be found in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, where she was shown as a church worker visiting Isaac Penruddock, an elderly clergyman, and his wife Eliza.  By 1901, she had returned to Weston-Super-Mare and was "living on own means". The Watts were sisters, daughters of  Andrew Watt, a policeman, and Catherine McAndie in Lesmahagow, Lanark. Mary McCandie was also from Lesmahagow, and the daughter of Richard McAndie, a butler and Marion Way.
Mary Townsend Hutchinson was born on 14 March 1848 in Norton, Durham, to Thomas Hutchinson and Elizabeth Emma Trevenen.  She was the fourth of seven children born to this very wealthy iron and steel merchant. She married Lord Ernest in 1869 in Stockton, and then pretty much disappeared from view, apart from her presentation at Court by Countess Vane during the Drawing room held by the Queen at Buckingham Palace on the 9th of March 1870. Lord Ernest, in contrast, led a vary colourful life.  For example, there are reports in The Times of his failing to pay for jewellery (1857, when he was described as "of Strephonic tendencies"), of assaulting another officer (1856) and the manager of the Windsor Theatre (1855). He went on to fight in the American civil war under the surname Stewart. By the 1881 census, the family seems to have been living quietly in an upper-middle-class area of Scarborough, with their son away at boarding school. Lord Ernest died in 1885, and his obituary in the Times (August 15 1885) does not even mention that he was survived by a wife and son. "Lord Ernest M'Donnell Vane-Tempest, son of the third Marquess of Londonderry, died at Scarborough yesterday. He was born in 1836, and served for a short time in the 2d Life Guards and the 4th Light Dragoons. Quitting England during the Civil War in America, he served in the Federal army under the name of Colonel Stewart, and was present at many of the engagements on the banks of the Potomac. In 1867 he became a volunteer in the 2d Durham Artillery, and in 1868 he contested the borough of Stockton-on-Tees in the Conservative interest."
Ernest and Mary are both buried in St James Churchyard, Thorpe Thewles, Grindon, Durham.