Berwick to Burnmouth
Crossing the English border into Scotland north of Berwick at Marshall Meadows Bay, the A1 and East Coast Main Line railway hug the rocky Berwickshire coast for a little over two miles before swerving inland at Burnmouth en route from London to Edinburgh.
Berwickshire is the name of the historic Scottish county that this area encompasses. It is now part of the Scottish Borders Council region.
Berwick itself has not been part of Berwickshire since 1482 when the town finally became part of England after changing hands thirteen times. Berwickshire has been part of Scotland since 1018, although along with Lothian, to the north, it historically formed part of the Kingdom of Northumbria.
Just after crossing the border north of Berwick, the A1 passes close to a place called Lamberton, a little further inland, to the west. From the 1750s Lamberton was one of the locations for English runaway marriages along with Gretna Green, Coldstream and Paxton.
Lamberton is the site of a ruined medieval church that was apparently dedicated to St Lambert, though the name of Lamberton is actually thought to mean ‘lamb farm’. The family name Lamberton originates here and their numbers have included William de Lamberton who was a Bishop of St Andrews from 1298 up until his death in 1328. He was possibly born here.
It was at Lamberton church in 1503 that Margaret Tudor of England was delivered by the nobles of England to the nobles of Scotland on her journey north to marry King James IV of Scotland as part of a peace treaty. In 1548 the village was burned by the English Earl of Hertford. In later times, King Charles I met with prominent families of the Lothians and Borders region here.
To the north of Lamberton, the little fishing village of Burnmouth is situated above a cliff where a tiny burn enters the sea at the harbour of Burnmouth Bay. Most of the village – Upper Burnmouth – is situated on the cliff top. There is a plaque at Burnmouth incorporating figures that commemorate the loss of life of 189 fisherman in the Eyemouth disaster of 1881. Twenty-four of these men were from Burnmouth.
Inland from Burnmouth the A1 and East Coast Main Line both leave the coast and head westward to follow the valley of the river Eye Water for nine miles as far as Grantshouse. From there they head north, heading back towards the coast at Cockburnspath. Here the two routes cross into East Lothian. Near Dunbar they leave the coastal area again and head west towards Edinburgh.
Ayton
About three miles west of Burmouth is Ayton, a former coaching stop on the Great North Road. Ayton is a pretty little village located on the Eye Water with a castle to its north. The High Street gives a sense of this once being an important stop for travellers but today the A1 bypasses Ayton on its north side.
Ayton means ‘Eye-Farm’ and the word ‘Eye’ in the river-name derives from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘ea’ which simply means ‘river’. The Eye Water also gave its name to the coastal village of Eyemouth.
Ayton Castle, not to be confused with Aydon Castle in Northumberland or Ayton Castle near Scarborough, is a beautiful castle-mansion built in Scottish baronial style.
Commissioned in 1851 it was the work of the Dunblane-born architect James Gillespie Graham (1776-1855) with further additions by David Bryce and James Maitland Wardrop.
The castle was constructed for William Mitchell-Innes, a former Chief Cashier of the Royal Bank of Scotland and is one of the finest examples of the baronial style of architecture in Scotland.
The castle, whose visitors included the American novelist Mark Twain in 1873, is built on the site of an earlier pele tower that was a seat of the Home (or Hume) family in medieval times. The present castle is set in beautiful estate grounds that include gardens, woodland and parkland. A remarkable event in the castle’s most recent history is its purchase by the comedian Alan Carr, in February 2026, as part of a renovation project that will be televised in a Disney+ series.
To the south, just across the Eye Water from Ayton village is Ayton church where a treaty was signed between England and Scotland following the capture of Ayton Castle in 1497.
Along the Eye to Eyemouth
Along the Eye Water valley to the north west of Ayton is the village of Reston just off the Great North Road (A1) and a further four miles north west in the same valley is Grantshouse on the A1 itself. Reston derives from ‘hris-ton’ meaning ‘brushwood settlement’ rather than from being a resting place on the A1.
At Grantshouse the A1 and nearby railway both depart from the valley of the Eye Water and head north towards Cockburnspath. Grantshouse was the site of an inn called Bank House on the A1 established by a Tommy Grant around 1816. Renamed Grantshouse, the location flourished with the arrival of the nearby railway and a railway station that operated here from 1846 to 1964.
Returning to the coast, the pretty harbour village of Eyemouth as its name suggests is situated at the mouth of the Eye Water about two miles north east of Ayton and has an attractive harbour setting.
In the mid-sixteenth century Eyemouth was briefly the site of a coastal fort built on a neighbouring headland to defend against the English.
Eyemouth was part of the lands of neighbouring Coldingham Priory and later passed to the Home family. The harbour at Eyemouth was developed in its modern form around 1715.
A notable house in Eyemouth is Netherbyres House, which was built for Captain Samuel Brown who built the Union suspension bridge across the Tweed near Horncliffe. The house was later purchased in 1928 by Sir Christopher Furness, the industrialist of Hartlepool.
Eyemouth was deeply affected by a terrible tragedy on October 14, 1881 when 189 fisherman were drowned in a sudden violent storm that followed a period of calm off the coast of southern Scotland.
Of the fatalities, 129 were from Eyemouth itself. Many of the dead were drowned as their boats struck the rocks of the nearby coast during poor visibility. In 1981 the prominent Auld Kirk in Eyemouth – the former parish church for Eyemouth – was converted into a museum and tourist information centre to commemorate the centenary of the Eyemouth disaster. The Kirk was built in 1811 by Alexander Gillie with some alterations undertaken in the 1830s.
Coldingham
About two miles along the coast to the north west of Eyemouth is Coldingham Bay at the mouth of the Milldown Burn. A little inland is the lovely Scottish village of Coldingham itself, with an old Northumbrian name that means ‘homestead of the kinship of Colud’.
Coldingham was the name of a Northumbrian monastery founded in AD 655 by St Ebbe (or St Abbe), the sister of Oswald, King of Northumbria. Ebbe who may also be linked to the name of Ebchester in County Durham, was an important figure in this era of Northumbrian history.
Ebbe’s father was Æthelfrith, King of Northumbria and her mother Acha, was the daughter of Ælla, King of Deira. Ebbe’s uncle was King Edwin. The original Coldingham monastery referred to as ‘Urbs Coludi’ is thought to have been situated on Kirk Hill at nearby St Abbs Head, which would be a typical setting for a monastery at that time.
Like St Hilda’s monastery at Whitby many miles to the south, Coldingham was a double monastery that was home to both nuns and monks and it was frequently visited by St Cuthbert, a friend of St Ebbe.
During his visits, St Cuthbert often wandered the seashore in the night sparking the curiosity of a Coldingham monk who spied on him from a distance. What the monk witnessed is remembered in the famous legend of ‘St Cuthbert and the Otters’.
The monk saw Cuthbert walk into the sea until the freezing water came up to his neck, after a while Cuthbert left the water and on the shore he began to pray. The monk’s story is told by St Bede:
“immediately there followed in his footsteps two little sea animals, humbly stretching themselves on the earth; and, licking his feet, they rolled upon them, wiping them with their skins and warming them with their breath. After this service had been fulfilled and his blessing had been received they departed to their haunts in the waves of the sea”
Later, the history of the abbey at Coldingham is a little misty but a new priory or at least a church was established in the Norman era at Coldingham by King Edgar of Scotland (reigned 1097-1107). Edgar defeated his uncle, the existing Scottish king, Donald Ban (Donald III). His victory over Donald was supposedly attributed to a vision of St Cuthbert who ordered Edgar to take the banner of St Cuthbert from Durham Cathedral into battle.
Giving thanks for the victory to St Cuthbert, Edgar established a church dedicated to St Mary, St Cuthbert and St Ebbe at Coldingham with its lands given to Durham Cathedral Priory. Some elements of this story are likely to be a foundation myth developed later to justify the rights of the monastery.
The extensive lands of Coldingham confirmed by King Edgar and centred on the church were in the possession of the church of Durham and formed a district called Coldinghamshire.
In 1150 Coldingham was confirmed as a Benedictine priory by King David I. This extensive monastic establishment continued to grow and was one of the wealthiest in Scotland, with revenue second only to Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, although the priors of Durham Cathedral were often the major beneficiaries of its wealth.
The priory was home to around 30 monks and around 70 other people employed in its operation and administration. It was an establishment subordinate to Durham and senior figures were often from Durham with names associated with the County Palatine.
Priors of Coldingham included Roger De Wolviston and William De Gretham in the 1320s and a Richard de Whitworth in the 1330s. Slightly later priors with Durham names included Alexander Lamsley (1338-39 – Lamesley being a place near Gateshead); Robert Berrington De Walworth (1363-1374) and John Ayclif (1392-1414).
Some Coldingham priors had names associated with places in Yorkshire or Northumberland such as Thomas De Melsonby (1229-1234, his name derived from a place between Darlington and Richmond). We also have Adam de Pontefract (1309-1332); William de Bamburgh (1355-1362) and William Drax (1418-1441). It is clear that in the early period the priory was dominated by northern Englishmen.
Despite this English dominance the priory was vulnerable to border and baronial troubles and national conflict. In 1216 the priory was raided by the English King John. Some decline in the priory’s fortunes then followed with the onset of the Black Death from the 1340s.
During the reign of Robert II of Scotland (1371-1390), there were accusations of spying and a belief that the English monks at Coldingham were a threat to the Scottish monarchy. Robert assigned the control of the monastery to Dunfermline Abbey and in 1378 appointed a new prior, Adam De Carale to replace the ousted English prior, William De Claxton.
Until the 1440s Coldingham was under the control of priors appointed by Dunfermline Abbey who likely came from more northerly parts of Scotland. The Scottish appointments included Michael de Inverkeithing (1379-1389); John Steele (1390-1402) and Andrew Raburn (1409-1414). At the same time, rival priors continued to be appointed by Durham. They included Durham’s John Ayclif (1392-1414), who successfully asserted his rights in Coldinghamshire. It was not until 1442 that the Pope confirmed Durham’s control over the monastery.
However, Border troubles and continuing conflict, contributed further to the demise in the fortunes of this vulnerable Scottish monastery. The last Durham monk was ousted in 1462 and after this time the priors of Coldingham were more like secular land owners than religious men.
At least now the priors do appear to have been local Berwickshire men, albeit from powerful local families. Between 1461 and 1517 Patrick, John, Ninian and David, all members of the Home family were priors. Alexander Home (senior and junior) were successive priors 1570-1587. Another man with local connections, Robert Blackadder (one time Bishop of Glasgow and Abbot of Melrose) was prior 1518-19 and an Adam Blackadder was prior 1523-1541.
Other notable priors of Coldingham included Alexander Stewart (the prior 1510-1513), who was an illegitimate son of King James IV. Francis Stewart, the Earl of Bothwell, was prior 1565-67 and again in 1584-1590. After the Reformation in 1592 Coldingham Prior and its lands passed into the hands of Alexander, the first Earl of Home.
In 1648 the monastery buildings were destroyed by cannons placed by Oliver Cromwell on a nearby hill, leaving the priory in ruins. The priory church saw extensive renovation and restoration in the Victorian era, incorporating surviving parts of the original building. Traces of outbuildings of the priory including the cloisters can be seen in the grounds and a feature of graves and sculptured items found in the grounds have been incorporated into a neighbouring wall.
Near the entrance to the priory is ‘the old hearse house’, built in the 1850s at the time of the restoration, as a storage building for a hearse.
St Abbs’ Head to Fast Castle
On the northern edge of Coldingham Bay we find the little village of St Abbs with its tiny harbour and just to the north, the rocky peninsula of St Abbs Head.
The village of St Abbs was originally called Coldingham Shore but was renamed in the nineteenth century. Three fishermen from this village perished in the Eyemouth disaster of 1881. In 2019 the village featured as the setting for New Asgard in the Avengers : Endgame movie.
The beautiful St Abb’s Head just to the north of the village formed by the ancient lava flows of igneous rock forms a protected coastal nature reserve noted for its colony of seabirds, notably Guillemots.
The remains of a nunnery and site of an ancient church – St Abb’s Kirk – can be seen here. To the rear of the headland is the tiny freshwater Mire Loch, which almost makes an island of the steeply inclined St Abbs’ Head.
On the west side of the headland is a tiny cove called Pettico Wick which was a focus for Scottish smuggling in times past. It is a hidden and secluded spot.
Much of the rocky coast west of St Abbs Head is barely accessible but there are lots of intriguing names for coastal features stretching along the coastline towards Fast Castle which stands on another headland.
Features along the six or so miles of coast coast between the two headlands include Thrummie Carr; Uillystrand Brae; Snuffhole Stells; Lumsdaine Shore and Brander Heugh. As with much of the rocky, steeply inclined Berwickshire coast there are few natural havens so there are no little fishing villages along this stretch.
Just inland from St Abbs Head are a scattering of ancient forts and settlements near Coldingham Loch, a freshwater loch that is actually three miles north of Coldingham village and formed by a natural spring. It was no doubt used by the ancient people who constructed the neighbouring settlements.
Fast Castle and its headland are six miles along the coast from St Abbs Head. It can be reached from a small car park about three quarters of a mile inland from the castle. The castle is a ruined fortification first recorded in the 1330s and rebuilt in 1522. An Iron Age settlement stood hereabouts but the later castle was primarily under the ownership of the Home family, although it was in the possession of the English in the 1340s.
It has a dramatic setting on the rocks of this fierce coast. ‘Fast’ is used in the sense ‘strong’ – as in ‘hold fast’ against attack. However, the castle did have to accept defeat when it surrendered to the forces of Oliver Cromwell after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. A more fanciful suggestion for the name of Fast Castle is that it derives from ‘fause’ meaning ‘false’ castle. The story is ships were falsely lured into safety by lanterns hanging from the rocks so the castle’s occupants might plunder and loot the subsequent wreckage.
A further nine miles or so of inaccessible rocky coast follows to the west of Fast Castle as we head towards Cockburnspath near the border with East Lothian. Again, starting from Fast Castle, the coastal features have more curious names : Black Mask; The Nick; Little Rooks; Green Stane; Black Bull; Midden Craig; Menzie Cleugh; Meikle Poo Craig; Marley Craig, Siccar Point and Green Heugh.
A little inland from the last of these is a place called Old Cambus (historically also called Ald Cambus) with the ruins of a twelfth century church dedicated to St Helen.
To the west of Old Cambus is the deeply wooded valley of the Pease Burn which reaches the sea, along with the neighbouring Cockburnspath Burn, at Pease Sands and Pease Bay.
Pease Bay is a quiet bay with extensive sands and is situated close to a static holiday home caravan park. The bay is bordered on its east side by Green Heugh Point near Old Cambus and bordered on its west side by Red Rock and Hawks Heugh. The two burns trickle across Pease Bay beach into the sea : Pease Burn is to the east and Cockburnspath Burn is to the west.
Slightly inland is the dene or wooded valley of the Pease Burn which is crossed by the Pease Dean Bridge of 1786. The bridge, which is virtually a viaduct built to carry a road rather than a railway, stands above the heavily overgrown dene with views out to sea.
Consisting of four arches this was once the tallest bridge in the world at the time of its construction and was built by a mason and architect called David Henderson. Inland, to the west and bypassed by the A1, is the village of Cockburnspath.
Cockburnspath
Situated about a mile inland from the sea, Cockburnspath is situated in the northernmost corner of the historic county of Berwickshire about a mile south of the Dunglass Burn that traditionally separated Berwickshire from East Lothian. A sixteenth century mercat cross at the centre of Cockburnspath village is carved with roses and thistles symbolising the marriage of Margaret Tudor of the English royal dynasty with the Stuart king of Scotland, James IV in 1503.
The village name Cockburnspath has nothing to do with the Scottish surname Cockburn or the place of that name near Duns. In fact Cockburnspath was originally ‘Kolbrandr’s Path’ and derives from an Anglo-Scandinavian personal name Kolbrandr. This personal name was also the name of a Danish giant but whether the old route-way alludes to this giant or to someone of the name Kolbrandr isn’t clear. Later, the original name came to be forgotten and was confused with the more familiar Scottish surname, Cockburn.
The path of the ancient route-way seems to have partly followed the Great North Road and is also remembered in the name of Pathhead, less than mile north of the village. Today the A1 bypasses Cockburnspath but the old course of the Great North Road still skirts the eastern edge of the village.
Cockburnspath is the eastern starting point for an altogether different path, the Southern Upland Way. This 241 mile long pathway through the upland scenery of the Scottish Borders has its western terminus at Portpatrick in Dumfries and Galloway.
From Cockburnspath the Southern Upland Way initially heads east and follows the rocky coast above the natural harbour of Cove towards Pease Sands and then heads south through the woodlands of the Pease Burn. From there it takes on a mostly south-westerly course through the uplands.
En route it passes through or close to Abbey St Bathans, Melrose, Galashiels, Traquair, St Mary’s Loch, Wanlockhead and Sanquhar. Portpatrick, the final destination is a village near Stranraer. Historically situated in Wigtownshire, Portpatrick is now in the modern county of Dumfries and Galloway and faces across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland.
Haddingtonshire : Into East Lothian
We will now briefly explore the neighbouring Scottish county of East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) and its highlights, with particular interest in places that have a connection to the history of the wider Borders and ancient Northumbria region.
About a mile north of Cockburnspath is the wooded valley of the Dunglass Burn which flows into the North Sea nearby and forms the historic old boundary between the counties of Berwickshire and Haddingtonshire – or East Lothian as it is also known.
Here we will stray briefly away from the Borders region to visit a few notable places of interest in the Lothian region including Dunbar and Haddington. The coastal town of Dunbar is reached about nine miles north of Cockburnpath. An especially prominent feature of the coast en route between the two places is the huge Torness Power Station, the construction of which began in 1980 and which came into operation in 1988.
Dunbar
Dunbar means ‘fort on the height’ combining the word dun (a fort) with a Gaelic word ‘barr’ meaning ‘height’. It is likely a Gaelic interpretation of an older Brythonic name ‘Din-Bar’ which has the same meaning but the new name probably came into being due to Gaelic influence after the Scots seized the Lothians from Northumbria in 1018.
In the earlier Brythonic speaking period (Brythonic a language related to Welsh), Dunbar was the site of a hill fort of the Votadini tribe during the Iron Age and later Roman era. Dunbar later became part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Bernicia and then belonged to that kingdom’s successor, the Kingdom of Northumbria.
Dunbar or its environs are thought to be the birthplace of the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert, who worked as a shepherd in the neighbouring Lammermuir Hills, to the west, before entering the monastery of Melrose to become a monk.
Dunbar also has a noted place in the history of Northumbria for being the place of imprisonment for the Northumbrian saint and bishop, St Wilfrid. Dunbar was at this time an important centre of administration for the northern part of Northumbria and likely still the site of a fortification of some kind.
Wilfrid was locked up at Dunbar by the Northumbrian king, Ecgfrith after the saint returned to Northumbria with papal documents that overthrew the division of the Northumbrian bishoprics, something Wilfrid passionately opposed. Wilfrid had a tempestuous relationship with the king who had him banished from Northumbria in AD 678. Following his release at Dunbar, Wilfrid fled south to Sussex where he converted the pagan South Saxons to Christianity.
Dunbar continued to be an important centre in northern Northumbria and in the ninth century was attacked by the Scottish king Kenneth McAlpin. The invasion of the Danes in AD 866 who split Northumbria in two and seized what became the Viking Kingdom of York (Yorkshire), south of the Tees, severely weakened the remaining northern rump of Northumbria centred on Bamburgh and this weakness was intensified when the Dane, King Cnut became King of England in 1016.
The Lothians, including Dunbar, passed into Scotland after the Battle of Carham in 1018 but in 1072 the land was granted by King Malcolm III to his relative Gospatric, the exiled Earl of Northumbria who seems to have been granted extensive lands in East Lothian and Berwickshire. Gospatric is thought to have built a new castle at Dunbar, replacing the earlier fort.
For many centuries the Earls of Dunbar were Gospatric’s descendants. Despite the continued Northumbrian dynastic influence in these early centuries, Dunbar seems to have rapidly assimilated into the Kingdom of Scotland.
Dunbar was the site of a battle – the Battle of Dunbar – between the English and Scots in 1296 and also the site of a battle called the Battle of Dunbar in the Bishops Wars, in 1650.
The battle of 1296 was a cavalry battle between the forces of King Edward I who had seized Berwick upon Tweed, and the cavalry of the Scottish king, John Balliol. King John was defeated and abdicated as king, with Edward asserting control north of the border and seizing the stone of Scone. It would trigger what was called the Scottish War of Independence and saw the rise of the Scottish freedom fighter and ‘Guardian of Scotland’, William Wallace.
In 1338 the castle at Dunbar came under siege from the English, while its owner Patrick the Earl of Dunbar was away. Famously, the castle was successfully defended by Dunbar’s wife, who was known as ‘Black Agnes’ and after five months of siege, the English finally accepted defeat.
Dunbar became a Scottish Royal Burgh in 1370 and was clearly one of the most important places on the coast between Edinburgh and Berwick. It was a convenient landing place and harbour but this made it a prime target for English attack, particularly after Berwick upon Tweed, less than thirty miles to the south, fell to the English in 1482.
Dunbar town has featured prominently in Scottish history. In 1566 Mary, Queen of Scots came here after the murder of David Rizzio and the following year James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, fled to Dunbar following his defeat at the Battle of Carberry Hill near Musselburgh.
The Battle of Dunbar that took place in 1650 during the Bishops’ Wars was between the forces of Oliver Cromwell and an army of Scottish Covenanters who had previously been Cromwell’s allies. It was fought in the vicinity of Doon Hill near Broxmouth, just south of Dunbar.
The Covenanters were defeated and Dunbar Castle, severely damaged by Cromwell’s cannons, was surrendered. Hundreds of Scottish prisoners were taken south into England and many perished on the journey. Many would be imprisoned by Cromwell at Durham Cathedral.
The town of Dunbar has many attractive old houses both in its centre and outskirts, many built with pinkish-red coloured stone. At the heart of the town is the High Street with other notable neighbouring streets including West Port; Victoria Street; Castle Street; Silver Street and narrow passageways such as Cossars Wynd. Church Street, to the south leads to Dunbar parish church, a Victorian church of red stone on the site of a succession of earlier rebuilt churches dating back to medieval times.
A particularly prominent building in Dunbar’s High Street is the old town house. Externally it dates to around 1620-1650. Eerily, seventy-three witches were tried here during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
At the north end of the High Street, facing down the length of the street as we head towards Dunbar harbour is Lauderdale House. Built in neoclassical style, this house has two distinct facades with the opposite side of the house facing out towards Dunbar harbour.
This house began life as ‘Dunbar House’, commissioned by local MP, James Fall around 1740 with work carried out by Robert Adam. Fall fell into financial difficulty and in 1790 the house was purchased by Robert James Maitland, the 8th Earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839). A distinct feature of the house is a winged ‘sphinx’ of sorts, that can be clearly seen from the High Street side.
Maitland initially renamed the house Dunbar Castle but then settled on the name ‘Lauderdale House’. Meanwhile, the architect Robert Adam died in 1792 before its completion but the work continued. Maitland’s successor, the 9th Earl of Lauderdale seldom visited Dunbar and in 1859 he sold the property to the War Office. It became Castle Park Barracks and was noted for the training of officers. It was still used for military training purposes during the First and Second World Wars.
The house was sold to the local authority in 1955 and in 1994 the building was converted into residential flats. Just outside the house on the coast facing side of the house is a piece of public art of 1998 entitled Girl and the Swan by the artist David Annand.
Dunbar was the birthplace of the Scottish American conservationist and naturalist, John Muir (1838-1914) who was the father of America’s national parks. Muir’s family emigrated to the United States and settled in Wisconsin when he was 11 years-old. The John Muir Birthplace Museum is situated in Dunbar’s High Street.
Haddington, Tyne and Traprain Law
Heading north-west along the coast from Dunbar, visitors from North East England may get a sense of home-from-home as they encounter a river called the Tyne and a place called Berwick (North Berwick) further to the north. The River Tyne or Tyne Water, as it is called in its upper stretches, enters the sea at Bellhaven Bay just west of Dunbar, having passed through places called East Linton and Tyninghame.
In the countryside south of East Linton and the River Tyne, half way between Dunbar and the town of Haddington, is a prominent hill called Traprain Law. This is the setting for the impressive Iron Age hill fort called Traprain Law that is thought to have been the capital or ‘Oppidum’ of the Votadini (or Otadini) tribe, whose territory seems to have stretched south, into what is now Northumberland. Eildon Hill, a hill fort near Melrose, is thought to have been the site of the capital of the rival tribe called the Selgovae.
About ten miles inland from Dunbar and situated on the River Tyne, is the East Lothian county town of Haddington, capital of Haddingtonshire, as East Lothian is also known. A market centre, Haddington’s name means something like ‘the place of Hadan’s people’ in the old Northumbrian language of the Anglo-Saxons. However, perhaps this name is somehow linked to that of the Votadini (Ottadini) tribe of Roman times or to the Brittonic people called the Goddoddin who succeeded them in the post-Roman era.
Haddington, known as ‘Hidden Toun’ was attacked by the English on numerous occasions, particularly during the reign of the English king, Henry VIII. In 1548, Haddington was captured by the English and garrisoned, following the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. It was subsequently besieged by the Scots. During the siege, the Scots signed a treaty with the French called the Treaty of Haddington which agreed to the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to the Dauphin of France and secured French support at the siege. The English garrison abandoned the captured town in September 1549.
The substantial market town of Haddington is centred on its High Street and Market Street which run almost parallel to each other. Separated by a spit-shaped island of buildings the two streets are joined at their east end by a street called Hardgate. An imposing town house of 1748 stands at the western junction of the two streets. It was designed by William Adam, with the prominent spire added by James Gillespie Graham in 1831.
On the western bank of the River Tyne just south of Haddington’s centre is the beautiful Kirk of St Mary the Virgin, the longest church in Scotland, dating from 1380-1462. Just to its north, the sixteenth century Nungate Bridge crosses the Tyne into the Nungate area where we find the old streets of Bridge Street; Giffordgate and St Martins Gate. Criminals were once hanged from a hook at the west end of the bridge. In Bullet Loan, just off St Martins Gate are the ruins of the twelfth century Kirk of St Martin. Giffordgate was the birthplace of the Scottish Protestant reformer, John Knox (1514-1572).
Further east on the River Tyne east of Haddington Golf Course once stood Haddington Abbey, a convent founded by Ada de Warrenne, wife of Henry, Earl of Northumbria (the son of David I) in the twelfth century. To the south of Haddington is Lennoxlove House, which includes a fifteenth century tower house originally called Lethington Castle. The house is the seat of the Duke of Hamilton.
Athelstaneford : Scotland’s flag
Another place of great interest in the Haddington area is the village of Athelstaneford three miles north east of the town. According to legend it was here, during a battle between the Picts (or perhaps the Britons) and invading Angles from Northumbria that the Pictish king was inspired to victory by the appearance of a white diagonal cross of clouds. They miraculously appeared in the bright blue sky on the morning of the battle.
He saw this as a sign of St Andrew who had been crucified on a diagonal cross. Following victory, St Andrew was said to have been adopted as Scotland’s patron saint. The Saltire of St Andrew, the white diagonal cross on a sky-blue background is of course the flag of Scotland.
The date of the battle has been placed in AD 832 or earlier where the Pictish king is usually identified as Angus but it has also been placed around AD 934 when King Æthelstan of Mercia (the first King of the English) campaigned in the area.
The name may not be connected with Æthelstan at all. Other theories are that it derives from the Anglo-Saxon Æðel – stane meaning noble stone or from Gaelic ‘ath-ail-stone‘ meaning stone ford. A sixteenth century dovecot (doocot) near the supposed battle site is home to a heritage centre celebrating the Scottish flag.
North Berwick and Firth of Forth
About five miles north of Athelstaneford we encounter the other Berwick, North Berwick to be precise, with its superb views out to sea across the Firth of Forth to Fife. North Berwick is part of an extensive northward protruding parcel of land that is actually further north than Edinburgh. Its name seems to have the same origin as Berwick upon Tweed but given the prefix ‘North’ to distinguish it from that town.
Overlooked by the prominent (once volcanic) hill of North Berwick Law the town has been the site of a ferry to Fife since medieval times. It became a Royal Burgh in the fifteenth century during the reign of James I of Scotland and was once the site of a castle.
Famously, North Berwick’s Auld Kirk Green was supposedly a meeting place for witches who were put on trial in the town in the 1590s. One group of witches led by an Agnes Sampson, who was subsequently executed, are said to have placed a curse on the ship of King James VI of Scotland as he returned by sea with his new wife Anne of Denmark. The king’s ship in fact survived a fierce storm, attributed to the witches, in which another ship foundered.
Several islands can be seen out at sea in the Firth of Forth off the shores of North Berwick. They are called Eyebroughy; the Sow; Fidra; Lamb and Craigleith. However, the most famous of the islands is Bass Rock, about a mile or so to the east, which is noted for its noisy and crowded sea bird colony of gannets.
Bass Rock was once the retreat of a Northumbrian hermit of the Lothians called St Baldred of Tyninghame. He died in AD 757. The ruins of Tantallon Castle lie on the mainland opposite Bass Rock to the east of North Berwick. The castle was built in the fourteenth century by the first Earl of Douglas.
Aberlady to Edinburgh and Abercorn
Heading the other way along the coast west of North Berwick we pass the famous Muirfield Golf Course near Gallane and cross the Peffer Burn into Mid Lothian where we reach the village of Aberlady overlooking Aberlady Bay. Anciently, Aberlady was an important stopping point in the Kingdom of Northumbria on a pilgrimage route between Lindisfarne and Iona.
Further west we head past Musselburgh and onward into the City of Edinburgh, the Scottish capital at the heart of Mid Lothian. Edinburgh was once itself within the Kingdom of Northumbria near its northern fringe but the theory that Edinburgh was the fort or burgh of the Northumbrian king, Edwin – Edwin’s Burgh’ – is perhaps a fanciful one as the name seems to have developed from ‘Eideann Burgh’. Earlier still it was ‘Dun Eideann’ which seems to be Gaelic for ‘fort of the rock face’.
Further west still, beyond Edinburgh and the Forth bridges is the village of Abercorn, once the site of a Northumbrian bishopric in Anglo-Saxon times. Abercorn was also the site of a Northumbrian monastery but there was only one known bishop, Trumwine. He was the Northumbrian-appointed ‘Bishop of the Picts residing north of the River Forth’. He was in effect the bishop for the Picts who paid tribute to Ecgfrith, the King of Northumbria, following Ecgfrith’s victory over them in AD 685. Trumwine was appointed bishop in AD 681 but his successor, if any, is unknown. He was buried at Whitby.
The River Forth was often at the northernmost limit of the Kingdom of Northumbria but the power of the Northumbrian kings in this northern fringe of Northumbria may have been tenuous and will have fluctuated over time.
Northumbrian influence in the land of the Picts beyond the Firth of Forth to the north was yet more limited and temporary. The historic links between Northumbria and Scotland’s Lothian and Borders region are of interest but belong to a distant past. The history, tradition, culture and identity of all the lands north of Berwick and the Cheviots is deeply and proudly Scottish and has been for more than a thousand years.
Nonetheless, it is interesting to understand the shared historic and cultural links between the Scottish Borders; the Lothians and England’s North East. These links stretch from the age of the Votadini tribe of the Iron Age and Roman eras through to the heyday of the Kingdom of Northumbria, continuing into the Anglo-Scottish wars and age of Border Reiving, right up to relatively recent times when many Scots from these areas found work in the industries of Northumberland, Durham, Tyne, Wear and Tees.
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