2-798-665 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cottage of the Black Dwarf, 1845. House in Peeblesshire in the Scottish Borders, home of a recluse, '...a poor deformed creature called David Ritchie, who...was only about three feet five inches in height. He was much deformed, and obtained amongst his neighbours - from the crookedness of his legs - the nick name of " Bowed Davie"'. Ritchie built the house himself: 'The materials were on the spot; for stones, held together by layers of turf, were all he required, except thatching for the roof, which he laid on with great neatness...This cottage had two apartments; but, although David consented to live under the same roof with his sister, he would neither permit her to come into his room, nor even to enter the house by the same door, and separate entrances were accordingly made...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.