Fine weather continuing. Bob Wallace1 went to Portsmouth2 at 8.24 + Amy3 had to meet him on his return about illegible in the afternoon + send him on to Harley Street about an appointment he is standing for. I had a very delightful run to the Gibbet4 : along Portsmouth road to Milford5 : thence to Hurtmore Eashing (where there is a wool mill on the Wey6), Norney, Hurtmore, Puttenham, Elstead, Thursley + back to the Gibbet. It was really lovely. I got a thistle with a white centre I have never seen before. The views here + there were enchanting. Met any amount of cars on the main road. Mary7, Amy + Helen8 were at a Garden Party at Sir Arthur Dickinson’s.9 In the evening I entertained them all including Helen the cook, Daisy (housemaid) + a Mrs Skene10 to some recitations + Helen sang.
1 There was a reference to Wallace as a medic in Dr Muir’s diary entry for 25 July 1923 which points to his being Robert William Lessel (or Leslie) Wallace (1881-1930), M.C., M.B., Ch.B., M.D., medical practitioner, born Turriff, Aberdeenshire, studied George Watson’s College and Edinburgh University, in medical practice at Woking, Surrey in 1923 [sources include: UK Medical Register, 1923]..
2 Wallace was attending one of the sessions of the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association held at Portsmouth 24-27 July 1923.
3 Helen Frances ‘Mousey’ Muir (1880-1963), Dr Muir’s third daughter and housekeeper.
4 Gibbet Hill grid reference NGR SU903,361 is the highest point on the escarpment of the Devils Punch Bownl near Hindhead.
5 Milford, SU944,424, Norney, SU943,449, Hurtmore, SU956,455, Eashing, SU947,438, Puttenham, SU930,478, Elstead, SU908,436, Thursley, SU901,397, and Gibbet Hill, near Hindhead, Surrey, SU900,358.
6 Eashing Mill on River Wey Navigation was a paper mill for most it its history but operated as a flock (residue wool) mill after imports of esparto grass and wood pulp made inland paper mills uneconomic. It was never a woollen mill as Dr Muir would have known them at home.
7 Mary Jane Wallace née Muir (1836-1933), Dr Muir’s sister, widow of James Wallace (d.1922), and living at Scotstoune, Haslemere, Surrey.
8 Amy Kathleen Waldie (1889-1960), James Wallace’s niece who lived at Scotstoun, Haslemere, Surrey [see for example the 1911 England Census for Scotstoun].
9 Assume Sir Arthur Lowes Dickinson (1859-1935), F.C.A., M.A. Cantab., of Shottersley, Haslemere and Alding, Grayswood. He was recorded at Thursley, SU901,397, a little to the north of the Muir family, in the 1921 Census but in fact the Garden Party may have been closer to home, at Shottersley or Alding, both properties on the north side of Haslemere. He was a pioneering chartered accountant in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America. At the end of the decade he commissioned a “most remarkable” modernist house at Grayswood, designed by Amyas Connell of Connell, Ward & Lucas.
10 These three are as yet unidentified.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/26, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1923]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 