Our current house was built around 1905 as part of a planned village for a massive new coal mine (for a long time the biggest mine in Scotland). The first occupant would have a miner and his family, but the house (and the mine, and the whole village) belonged to the Lothian Coal Company, which was the private possession of the Ker family, part of the vast estate they acquired from the Abbey of Newbattle (abbey in name, industrial/agricultural conglomerate in actuality) at the Reformation.

Accordingly the title deeds are as feudal as it gets. The feu system has now mostly gone, but until a few years ago they said we couldn't grow vegetables in the front garden or operate a stationary engine.