Stobicote is a farm between Old Northhouse and Southfield, first recorded as being leased to Walter Scott of Branxholme by the Abbot of Melrose in 1500. Most famously, it was the birthplace of millwright, inventor, and locally-renowned amateur astronomer Gideon Scott (born 1765). Scott received only four months of schooling before becoming a herdsman as a boy. He was later taken on as apprentice wheelwright and carpenter by Walter Turnbull, and thereafter founded his own mill, which became Gideon Scott & Sons, based on the Cross Wynd. A skilful inventor with the knack of foresight, Scott helped to convert many of the Hawick-based mills to water power (for example, his firm supplied the new waterwheel to Wilton Mills in 1829). Around 1802, Scott invented an early reaping-machine; however, it was greatly unpopular among manual labourers (given its success would have put many of them out of work), and so upon secretly testing it in the dead of night, he smashed it up himself. Entirely self-taught, Gideon Scott was regarded as a prodigy by the townsfolk of Hawick, and was himself a great believer in and advocate for education, starting the Trades’ Library in a room of his own house. He died in 1833.