South and west Roxburghshire
The south-western parts of what was the historic county of Roxburghshire (now part of the Borders council region), encompass a vast and sparsely populated region that make up a huge portion of this former Scottish Borders county. It is a land of wild hills, remote dales, extensive forests and vast moorlands that dominate the countryside here.
This is still very much Scottish Border Country and much troubled by raiding and Border Reiving in times past. Most of the settlements here are tiny hamlets in quiet valleys such as Borthwick Water and Teviotdale, to the west and south west of Hawick or the dale of Slitrig Water to the south of Hawick.
Further south still, close to the border with England, are Liddel Water in Liddesdale and the adjoining valley of Hermitage Water. For several miles, the Liddel Water and its tributary, the nearby Kershope Burn, form part of the Scotland-England border.
Slitrig Valley to Hermitage Castle
We will explore this area, entering from the north via the town of Hawick where we can follow the B6399 southward from the town for around six miles along the valley of the Slitrig Water. Three miles south of Hawick is the site of Stobs Castle, a major seat of the Elliot clan destroyed by a fire in 1713. Further south, as Slitrig Water becomes little more than a trickle, the B6399 road from Hawick leaves the valley behind at Langburnshiels.
A further five miles or so south of Langburnshiels we reach the hamlet of Hermitage where the Whitehope Burn joins the Hermitage Water. Half a mile along the Hermitage Water valley to the west is Hermitage Castle, the great icon of the Scottish Border and its troubled past.
Described as ‘The Strength of Liddesdale’ Hermitage Castle is roofless, lonely, haunting, intimidating and formidable and cannot fail to impress. It perfectly captures the age of Border Reiving.
Described as the guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain, Reiver families associated with Hermitage Castle in one way or another include the Armstrongs, Douglasses, Hepburns, Dacres, Elliots, Scotts and Kerrs.
An information board at the site recalls the words of a Bishop of Glasgow regarding the reivers, that he wished to be read from every pulpit in Scotland in the 1500s. It expressed his desire that the earth would open up and swallow them to hell:
Hermitage Castle began life as a Norman motte and bailey castle under the ownership of Nicholas de Soulis (de Soules), the Lord of Liddesdale around 1240. The name of the castle is from the Norman French l’armatage, meaning ‘a guardhouse’.
In legend, a later descendant of Soulis called William de Soules was encased by a magical lead belt created by a local wizard called Thomas of Ercildoune (Thomas the Rhymer of Earlston) and taken to the Ninestane Rig stone circle two miles north of Hermitage where he was boiled to death. In fact William died as a prisoner at Dumbarton, but the story typifies the darkness associated with the history of the castle.
The core of the castle is thought to have been built by the renowned medieval architect, John Lewin, who died in 1398. Lewin is best known for creating the magnificent great kitchen at Durham Cathedral (which now houses the relics of St Cuthbert) but seems to have been primarily a military architect of castles in North East England and Yorkshire.
Under Norman domination for its early history, Hermitage was under the control of Sir Ralph Neville of Raby Castle in 1338 but the castle was besieged and taken by Sir William Douglas, Lord of Liddesdale. It was Douglas that captured the Sheriff of Teviotdale, Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, at Hawick church in 1342 and imprisoned him at Hermitage where he was left to die.
After 1346, when the Scots were defeated at the Battle of Nevilles Cross in which Douglas was captured, Hermitage fell into English hands once again. It then became the property of the powerful Dacre family of Cumberland.
Later, after the death of Douglas of Liddesdale, it passed back into Scottish hands to the ‘Black Douglas’ branch of the Douglas family who likely employed Lewin in its rebuilding. The Black Douglas family held it until it was forfeited by the king and passed to another branch of the Douglas family. In 1492 they too fell out of favour with the king and Hermitage was given to the Hepburns, Earls of Bothwell.
Famously, Mary Queen of Scots, then staying at Jedburgh, visited her lover, James the Earl Boswell here at Hermitage after he had become injured following a skirmish with a notorious reiver called Wee Jock Elliot of the Park, who was captured and imprisoned at the castle and shot by Bothwell as he tried to escape.
Mary only spent around two hours at the castle before returning to Jedbugh, taking ill on her return journey. After the ambitious Hepburn was defeated in battle by opposing Scottish nobles at Carberry Hill near Musselburgh to the east of Edinburgh. He fled to Scandinavia, initially being captured in Norway and then sent to Denmark where he was imprisoned and died.
By the 1580s Heritage Castle fell under the control of Thomas Kerr of Ferniehirst, the Keeper of Liddesdale and later Francis Stewart, who now held the title Earl of Bothwell who was accused of plotting against the king in conjunction with witches at North Berwick. In 1603 when James VI of Scotland also became the King of England, the age of reiving quickly came to an end. In the early 1700s it became a property of the Scots of Bucchleuch who undertook some repairs in the 1820s. Just to the west of the castle are the remains of a medieval chapel, probably associated with Nicholas De Soules, though possibly earlier. Its origins are obscure.
Upper Liddesdale and Newcastleton
Heading south from Hermitage hamlet, after four miles we reach a place once called Castleton, a mile north of the village of Newcastleton. Here, Hermitage Water joins Liddel Water. Where rivers merge, roads often merge too and near this river junction, the B6399 joins the B6357 from Newcastleton which continues north-eastward to follow the upper part of Liddel Water in Liddesdale.
If we follow the B6357 upstream through Liddesdale for six miles from its meeting with Hermitage Water, we reach a little place called Saughtree, where the road continues north through Wauchope Forest to Bonchester Bridge some ten miles to the north.
Liddel Water begins a couple of miles east of Saughtree in the region of Wormscleugh and Peel Fell in the Cheviots, not far from the English border. Deadwater Fell, Kielder and the North Tyne are just to the south, over in Northumberland.
We will now head downstream along the Liddel Water to Newcastleton, a planned village, constructed in 1793 by William Keir for the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch. Centred on a square with a village green called Douglas Square, Newcastleton was established as a settlement for handloom weavers.
The village was built on or near the site of a tower fortification called Copshaw Tower and the village is sometimes known by its original name Copshaw Holm or ‘Copshie’. Its official name, Newcastleton, derives from nearby Castleton (Old Castleton) which was the original Castleton, to the north. Castleton itself is named from the nearby site of Liddel Castle, of which there are very scant ruins. There is little else to see at Old Castleton, except for the Castleton cemetery, with an atmospheric setting in the dale with the hills as a backdrop.
Kershope Burn : The Scottish Border
Just over two miles south of Newcastleton, Liddel Water is joined on its eastern bank by the Kershope Burn at Kershope Foot. Westward from its meeting with the Liddel Water, this burn forms the Scotland-England border for around nine miles. It specifically marks the border between the historic counties of Roxburghshire and Cumberland.
Tracing the Kershope Burn upstream, the valley passes through Kershope Forest, Newcastleton Forest and Kielder Forest where it becomes little more than a trickle.
Along its course we pass a hill called Blinkbonny Height and locations named Scotch Kershope; English Kershope; Yearning Flow; Scotch Knowe and Lazy Knowe. Upstream from Scotch Knowe and Lazy Knowe the Kershope Burn leaves Cumberland behind and forms the border between Roxburghshire and Northumberland.
Beyond, where the north-western reaches of Kielder Forest meet the Scottish Lariston Fells near Bloody Bush and Hobbs Flow bogs, the border is not so easily defined as we approach Kielder and the North Tyne.
Back downstream, the course of the River Liddel between Kershopeburfoot and its confluence with the River Esk south of Canonbie played a part in the story of the capture of the notorious reiver, Kinmont Willie. On March 17, 1596 a meeting set aside as a ‘Day of Truce’ for men from both sides of the border to discuss matters and settle disputes was held near Kershopeburn Foot. There were around 200 riders from each side with Kinmont Willie in attendance accompanying the Scottish party.
The meeting ended peacefully and the parties went their separate ways with the main body of English heading west along the south bank of the Liddel while a smaller detached party of Scots including Kinmont Willie himself headed in the same direction along the north bank.
For some reason, as dusk fell, English riders under the leadership of the English deputy, Salkeld, broke the truce and crossed the river shortly before its confluence with the Esk near Rowanburn. They pursued and captured Willie and took him to Carlisle Castle for imprisonment. The events sparked a diplomatic row; a famous rescue and the making of a lengthy Border ballad.
“And have they taken him, Kinmont Willie,
Against the truce of Border tide?
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleugh,
Is Keeper here on the Scottish side?
Lower Liddesdale
Heading back downstream along the Kershope Burn to Kershopefoot where the Kershope Burn joins the Liddel Water, the Liddel Water itself forms the Scotland-England border south-westward for around seven miles up to its confluence with the River Esk to the south of Canonbie.
Along this part of its course the Liddel Water specifically formed the old border between the historic counties of Roxburghshire and Cumberland as far west as its confluence with the Muir Burn (on the north side) after which it forms the historic border between Dumfriesshire and Cumberland.
The ‘by’ or ‘bie’ of Canonbie in Dumfriesshire is from the Old Danish word for a farm or village and reflects the Viking influence that you increasingly find in south western Scotland near its borders with Cumberland.
Examples in historic Dumfriesshire include Middlebie, Sibbaldbie, Dunnabie and Lockerbie, while examples in the Carlisle area of Cumberland include Netherby, Scotby, Crosby-on-Eden, Scaleby, Botcherby and Rickerby. The ‘Canon’ part of Canonbie’s name recalls the canons or brethren of an Augustinian monastery situated here between 1165 and 1542.
A few miles north of Canonbie on the River Esk in Eskdake is the little town of Langholm in which the Viking word ‘holmr’ – a water meadow (that can also mean island) has been adopted into the Scots language.
Langholm was the site of the Battle of Arkinholm fought on May 1st, 1455 between the Scottish Earl of Douglas and King James II in which Douglas was defeated. Langholm is the historic seat and centre of the Armstrong clan of Border reivers, whose historic homes included Gilnockie Tower about five miles south of the town.
Gilnockie Tower, situated alongside the River Esk, is the home of the Clan Armstrong Centre managed by the Clan Armstrong Trust. The tower is most famously associated with a notorious Border Reiver called Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie.
It is not clear whether or not this tower (also known as ‘Hollows’) was actually built before or after Johnnie Armstrong’s time but it certainly captures the imagination of the reiving age. The Clan Armstrong Trust celebrate the famous family name and its world-wide connections noting individuals such as the famous Northumbrian industrialist William, Lord Armstrong who resided at Cragside in Coquetdale and of course the United States astronaut, Neil Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon.
Johnnie Armstrong had a somewhat legendary status in Border Reiving culture. Encouraged and protected by the powerful Robert Maxwell, the 5th Lord Maxwell, Armstrong was a great source of trouble for the reigning Scottish monarch King James V. As well as his constant raiding and foraging, Armstrong became involved in a feud with Lord Dacre in England after he burned the village of Netherby in Cumberland in 1527. Dacre responded with an attack on Armstrong at Canonbie, the following year.
Despite his apparent folk hero status, Armstrong was a thorn in the side for the authorities and even gained the attention of the Archbishop of Glasgow who had him excommunicated. His activities were eventually brought to an end in 1530 when he was lured into a meeting with King James V by a ‘luing letter of safe conduct’. Ostensibly, this was a meeting to keep the peace but Armstrong and thirty-six (some say fifty) of his men were arrested and executed (probably hanged) by the king’s men at Caerlanrig chapel in Teviotdale, ten miles south west of Hawick.
Johnnie Armstrong wasn’t the last Armstrong of notoriety. Another famous Armstrong reiver was Kinmont Willie Armstrong, who lived in the Tower of the Sark near the River Sark in the debatable lands of the Scotland-England border. A particularly active reiver in the 1580s and 1590s he was notorious for his raids into North Tynedale where he targeted the Milburn family of reivers. It is said that Willie could be accompanied by up to a thousand men, his followers being known as ‘Kinmont’s Bairns’.
As we have noted, Kinmont Willie was captured by the English in Liddesdale and imprisoned at Carlisle Castle in 1596 where he was subsequently rescued by Walter Scott, the laird of Buccleuch who broke into the castle with the help of English reivers called the Carletons and an English branch of the Graham family. This daring rescue became the subject of a Border Ballad dedicated to Kinmont Willie. Willie himself would live into old age and died around 1608.
Armstrongs from all over the world visit Langholm and Gilnockie. In 1972 the town of Langholm was visited by astronaut Neil Armstrong who acknowledged the town of Langholm as his ancestral home. The River Esk rises around fourteen miles north west of Langholm in Eskdalemuir Forest.
The Debatable Land
To the south of the Esk and Liddel Water confluence near Canonbie, the England-Scotland border heads west following the Scots Dike (an earthwork established as part of the border in 1552). At the west end of this dike the border then joins and follows the River Sark southward up to the point where it joins the channel of the River Esk in the Solway Forth near Gretna and Gretna Green to the north of Carlisle.
Gilnockie Tower and the village of Canonbie both lie within an area of once hotly disputed and particularly lawless territory called ‘The Debatable Land’. Stretching from south of Langholm to the estuary of the Solway Firth, this land was bounded by the Liddel Water and the English part of the River Esk on its eastern side and bordered on its western side by an uncertain boundary somewhere between Langholm and Gilnockie.
It was uncertainty over the national ownership and responsibility for this land that attracted some of the most troublesome Border reivers and it became the most lawless district in the border. It was dominated by the Armstrongs and Elliots to the north and by the Grahams and Bells to the south.
A meeting between the Scots and English in 1552 presided over by the French Ambassador divided this land into two portions that were split between England and Scotland and divided by a purpose built boundary called the Scots Dike that stretched from the Sark to the Eden. Places such as Canonbie and Gilnockie were verified as Scottish territory.
Just north of the eastern end of Scots Dike at a place called Woodhouselee (now Woodslee House) to the west of the Esk and the B7201 once stood Kinmont Tower, a home to the notorious Border Reiver, Kinmont Willie.
However, along the River Sark just north of the western end of the dike is the site of another tower, the Tower of Sark at Morton Rigg, which is also associated with Kinmont Willie, with the site of his grave somewhere nearby. Kinmont Willie Armstrong was famously rescued from imprisonment in Carlisle Castle in 1596. His capture and rescue became the subject of a famous border ballad which specifically mentions Woodhouselee.
Gretna Green
At Gretna Green just to the north of the River Sark the theme of border reiving and warfare gives way to stories of love, marriage and impetuous trysts. Long after the days of border warfare ended this village came to be famed in times past for runaway marriages, when young English couples escaped to Scotland to ‘tie the knot’. Legal marriage ceremonies were conducted at blacksmiths in this Scottish village, which lies so close to the English border.
This was a time when the marriage laws of Scotland were more liberal than those of England. Such marriages also took place in Scotland at Coldstream, Paxton and Lamberton in Berwickshire. In Scotland marriages only required two witnesses and almost anyone could undertake the marriage ceremony, which in Gretna Green was performed by local blacksmiths over the anvil.
Runaway marriages to Scotland began in 1753 after a new law in England and Wales stated couples under 21 could not marry without parental consent. At that time boys in Scotland could marry at the age of sixteen and girls could marry at twelve, without parental consent, though this age was later raised to sixteen. From 1856 the law north of the border was changed so marriage was only possible in Scotland if there had been residency in that nation for more than 21 days.
Just across the A74 (M) motorway and the A75 south of Gretna Green is the larger town of Gretna. This place, which includes an out of town ‘designer’ retail park really only came into being in the early part of the twentieth century and was a place of residence for munitions workers who worked at a cordite factory just across the border in England during World War One.
A little south west of the town, overlooking the Solway Firth is Old Gretna or ‘Auld Graitney’, which is a little collection of farm buildings. Auld Graitney is the original Gretna from which Gretna and Gretna Green take their name. The name comes from ‘Greoten-ho’ or ‘Greoten-halh’ meaning ‘gravelly haugh’ – or gravelly riverside land.
Old Gretna overlooks the point where the River Sark, at the very western end of the Scottish border, joins the channel of the River Esk within the Solway Firth. Close by, at the edge of the estuary is the site of the Battle of Sark (also called the ‘Battle of Loch Maben Stone’).
The Battle of Sark was fought on October 23, 1448 between Scots, under Hugh Douglas, Earl of Ormonde and English under Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. It was part of a long-running conflict and rivalry between these two powerful baronial families of the border and was a victory for Douglas with a loss to the English of 3,000 men.
Other great battles between these two families included the Battle of Homildon Hill near Wooler in 1402 and of course the Battle of Otterburn in 1388. The alternative name for the Battle of Sark comes from the Loch Maben Stone, an ancient megalith overlooking the Solway Firth nearby. It was once an important meeting point between the English and Scots. Confusingly, Loch Maben itself is about sixteen miles north west of here.
Over four miles across the Solway Firth to the south of Old Gretna is Burgh by Sands in England, where King Edward I of England died in 1327. A similar distance across the Solway Firth to the south west and also in England is Bowness on Solway at the western end of Hadrian’s Wall. The Solway Firth region is the only point at which the Scottish Border and Hadrian’s Wall come so close.
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