CCLVIII – St Abb’s Head to Berwick-upon-Tweed

IT WAS to a not entirely unfamiliar problem that I awoke on the second morning of my April 2025 escapade, which was that I was not where I needed to be.  I had made my plans, and hotel bookings, on the assumption that day one would end in Eyemouth and it had not.  Thus, while I was rising in Eyemouth at some ungodly hour, eager to resume my circumperambulatory shenanigans, I actually needed to be at St Abb’s Head – some six miles away – to begin them…

Return to Start

Available Options

I had known the night before that this would be an issue and that knowledge was partly what had compelled me to get up a good couple of hours earlier than I had originally planned. Ruling out the most improbable scenarios – such as, for instance, being temporarily abducted and dropped off at St Abb’s Head by an unusually helpful flying saucer – I had two main options for returning to the start of the day’s walk.  The simplest one was to walk it, the other involved catching a bus halfway and then walking the rest of it.

Pedestrian Pace

I decided, as I had always been going to, that I would take the bus option and save myself around three miles of unnecessary effort.  This was a sensible plan and would probably have worked had I been able to rouse a sufficient sense of urgency, but no.

Thus it was, that I emerged from my accommodation to watch the bus rumble past me, having already departed my stop.  I watched it go with a sense, not of urgency, but irresistible inevitability, and compounded the sensation by consulting the timetable again. Walking all the way would now be quicker than waiting for the next one. Of course it would.

Two hours and one en-route ice cream later, I ambled up to the gates of St Abb’s Head Lighthouse, where I had ‘officially’ left off the evening before.

St Abb’s Head

The Lighthouse

St Abb’s Head Lighthouse was built in 1862, apparently prompted by the wreck of the paddle steamer Martello on Carr Briggs in 1857. Which is a bit odd, given that Carr Briggs is about 30 miles northwest of St Abbs Head and situated off Fife Ness, although I guess the wreck must have just generally prodded the Northern Lighthouse Board into action in and near the Firth of Forth.

It was designed by two members of the prolific lighthouse-designing Stevenson family, namely the brothers David (1815-1886) and Thomas (1818-1887) Stevenson.

Although only 9 m tall, its position on the coastal slope puts it 68 m above sea level, although this is still 26 m below the summit of the head.  The reason it isn’t placed right on top is that the summit is frequently shrouded by sea fog, which often passes above the top of the lighthouse.  Between 1876 and 1987, the light was supplemented by Scotland’s first foghorn for those days when the fog came down low enough to obscure it.

The light was automated in 1993 and its keepers’ cottage sold off thereafter.

Berwickshire Coast Path

While I had followed the public road network to get back to the lighthouse, my route onward from it would follow the Berwickshire Coastal Path (BCP). This initially began as a waymarked track along grassy, unfenced cliffs.

Kirk Hill

As its name suggests, Kirk Hill was once home to an ecclesiastical edifice or two. Most recently – for a particular value of ‘recent’ – a chapel stood there in 1372, this being dedicated to St Æbbe of Coldingham (c. 615-683), the daughter of King Æthelfrith of Bernicia (whose kingdom would later unite with Deira to form Northumbria).

Æbbe was converted to Christianity while temporarily in exile in Dál Riata due to dynastic disputes and,  upon her return, she helped spread the faith through a newly-united Northumbria that was now ruled by her brother Oswald (c. 604-642).

Coludesburh

In the course of this activity, Æbbe founded the combined monastery & nunnery of Urbs Coludi or Coludesburh. This occupied Kirk Hill for several decades before burning down in 679 – possibly due to lightning, which rather implies that the Almighty was unimpressed with their devotion! 

Excavation and radiocarbon dating has confirmed that a settlement did indeed exist there between about 630 and 770.

The monks and nuns were not about to let divine intervention tell them what to do and so the monastery was subsequently rebuilt.  This time it managed to last for almost a century, growing into a suitably rich target to be plundered and razed by marauding Danes in 870.

Wuddy Heugh

The footpath emerged, unravaged by Danes, from behind Kirk Hill to re-join the coast at Horsecastle Bay. This led, in turn, to Burnmouth Harbour, where the path suddenly turned into steps in order to climb 50 m in almost no distance at all.

Having ascended, I paused atop Wuddy Heugh to enjoy the view back across the two bays and absolutely not because I was out of breath. The very idea!

Bell Hill

From Wuddy Heugh, the footpath traversed the coastal flank of Bell Hill, passing above White Heugh (a heugh being a cliff or steep bank).  Here, I paused again, but this time because I was greeted by two Uncertain Explorers heading the other  way who seemed not to know where the path was actually going. I explained that it was most immediately aiming for the lighthouse and how far (not very) that now was. They, in turn, described in great detail the path between Bell Hill and Burnmouth Harbour. Wait, what?

This was initially confusing but I quickly realised they did not mean this Burnmouth Harbour, but a harbour in the village of Burnmouth, which lay a few miles beyond Eyemouth.

Mire Loch

It would be better to say that Burnmouth Harbour doesn’t have a burn now.  And, while even the earliest available Ordnance Survey map (1858) doesn’t show an actual burn, it also doesn’t show the nearby Mire Loch, which was then a couple of quarries and a boggy mire.  Any intermittent outflow from the mire would have naturally flowed downhill to Burnmouth Harbour, which at least makes sense of that name.

The Mire Loch was created circa 1900 by the Usher family, who owned the Northfield Estate (of which this was part). They dammed the outflow of the mire to create a reservoir for fishing.

St Abbs

Coldingham Shore

It was from the flank of Bell Hill that I gained my first glimpses of the village of St Abbs, which would be my more immediate destination.

A fishing village, St Abbs has been called that since 1890, which means that it has now borne that name for 135 years. Before that, it was known as Coldingham Shore a name indicating its origin as the harbour and port for the larger inland village of Coldingham.  The name change was prompted by Edinburgh distiller Andrew Usher (1826-1898) – co-founder of the North British Distillery (est. 1885) – who had just purchased the Northfield Estate.

Northfield House

One might have expected the BCP to continue to wind around the cliff edge until it reached St Abbs, but it actually cut inland before Black Craighead, joining a surfaced footpath that connected it to the B6438 road.  The purpose of this diversion was to skirt the grounds of Northfield House, whose gate I soon passed on that B-road.

Andrew Usher

Northfield House was built for Andrew Usher in 1892 as the new seat of the Northfield Estate. He had it surrounded by formal gardens (through which the coast path had just avoided barging).

In addition to building a house for his own benefit, Usher also paid out for the improvement of the village, constructing a new village hall in 1887, funding the extension of its harbour wall in 1890, and building a new village church in 1892. The hall now houses the St Abbs Visitor Centre, which I passed on my way into the village.

I don’t think Andrew had a coat of arms, but his brother and business partner Sir John Usher (1828-1904), was created a baronet in 1899, gaining one in the process. Andrew had had only daughters and it was John and his sons who would mostly inherit the Usher legacy. John’s coat of arms comprised a silver saltire on red between four Doric columns.

St Abbs Harbour

Ebbcarrs Café sat on the harbourfront and made for a pleasant place to sit and enjoy a break with coffee and cake.

The harbour itself was constructed in 1833, improving a natural haven surrounded by sheltering rocks. This spurred the development of the village, which had been noticeably absent from William Roy’s 1755 military survey map of the Scottish Lowlands.

The harbour was enlarged in 1890, thanks to the previously-mentioned funding by Andrew Usher.

Seaview Terrace

From the harbourside, the BCP climbed steeply up some steps to re-join the road at Seaview Terrace. This was a row of sea-facing cottages at the far end of which the road likewise ended but a footpath continued. It was one of the oldest parts of St Abbs, dating from its initial post-harbour development and is visible on the OS 1st ed map of 1858.  Other terraces behind it would appear on subsequent maps but, in 1858, it was backed only by fields.

Coldingham & Milldown Bays

Wittery Braes & Kip Rock

The BCP rounded the headland by Castle Rock and then followed the curve of Coldingham Bay.  Although it wasn’t a  particularly broad path, it was well-made and surfaced and occasional signs pointed out the local names for various points along it that my modern OS map had left quite anonymous. These included Wittery Braes and Kip Rock.

Creel Road

At the edge of Coldingham Sands, the footpath forked in twain. To the left, it descended onto the beach and this was the route that the BCP followed. To the right, it veered inland to join up with the Creel Road.

Now a mere footpath linking St Abbs to the B6438, the Creel Road was the original direct road between Coldingham Shore and Coldingham proper, along which the fishing fleet’s catch could be transported.  What is now the B-road was a roundabout route via Northfield Farm, which predates the village of St Abbs. The farm was depicted on Roy’s 1755 map, though its road was not, making it then a minor track at best.

Coldingham Sands

Having rejected the Creel Road, I stayed with the BCP as it dropped down onto Coldingham Sands. This wasn’t the most enormous of beaches but what there was of it was sandy and glorious. It was also served by a beach café that might well have tempted me had I not just come from another café in St Abbs.

This was as close to the village of Coldingham as I was going to get while on my walk.

Coldingham Priory

Although never a large village, Coldingham was of some importance in mediaeval times as Scotland’s King Edgar (c. 1074-1107) founded a Benedictine priory there in 1098, dedicating it to St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (c. 634-687).

As is typically the case, the priory then wielded local power and influence until its activities were curtailed by the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Thereafter, the priory itself passed into the possession of the Earl of Home, while its estate went to the Earl of Bothwell, who had been the priory’s last commendator.  The estate later passed from his son to the Homes of Renton.

Milldown Bay

At the far end of Coldingham Sands, the BCP left the beach and climbed up a hill to cut behind the lumpen headland that comprised Milldown Point. Beyond that lay Milldown Bay, which was characterised by an unwelcoming shingle beach.

This was annoying enough (I do not like shingle) but, before I even stepped foot on it, the path first descended steeply to a wooden footbridge over Milldown Burn.  On the far side of the bay, it naturally then climbed back up again. Of necessity, this involved lots more steps and those on the ascent in particular were individually quite tall.

Linkim & Hallydown Shores

Yellow Craig Head

Atop Yellow Craig Head on the Milldown Bay’s far side, I encountered a group of walkers heading back the other way and one elderly member, seeing me catch my breath, expressed solidarity regarding the effort demanded by the steeply-cut steps.  But it was, she opined, a nice view once you were up them:

Linkim Shore

A thankfully more leisurely descent then took me back down to sea level. This time, there was a path just above the shingle, which made for a far more pleasant crossing of the embayment called Linkim Shore:

Fleur’s Dean

Between me and Linkim Kip was an obstacle in the form of the Abbey Burn, which emerged from a wooded ravine named Fleur’s Dean.  This was a little too much to wade across and I was pleased to see that the BCP didn’t expect me to try.  Instead, the path turned inland, making its way up Fleur’s Dean until it reached a point where it had proven more feasible to install a footbridge. 

There, I stood aside to let a small family group of hikers go past in the other direction, its passage serenaded by the incessant call of its youngest (early teen) member: ‘Daaaaad, I’m booorred!’

‘Dad’ didn’t care. He was striding too far ahead to have to deal with that kind of thing. I decided to emulate his effort and likewise strode off with purpose. I climbed with the path to the top of Dennison’s Brae, and from there charged onwards past Hallydown Shore to Callercove Point.

Eyemouth

Hairy Ness

Merrily speeding along, I followed the coastal path as it led above Killiedraught Bay and then out round the headland of Hairy Ness, upon which sits Eyemouth Holiday Park. 

There, the path became suddenly busy with holidaymakers and local dog-walkers alike, which was a bit of a challenge on account of its narrowness. I can’t blame them for also wanting to enjoy the cliff path though, as it was lovely and the weather – as was pointed out to me by a loquacious little old lady (LLOL) – was glorious. Well, mostly glorious. According to the LLOL, it was also ‘surprisingly cold in the shade.’ And it probably was to her, but it wasn’t to me.

Still pleasantly warm, even when shaded, I extricated myself from what otherwise promised to be an eternally unending conversation and continued round to the site of Eyemouth Fort.

Eyemouth Fort

Eyemouth Fort was at once a historically significant fort and was at one point a strategic asset, and yet a fort that played no role in any important battles. Or indeed any battles at all.  It was also actually two forts:

English Fort

The first fort was built by the invading English in 1547 during the Rough Wooing (1543-1551), which was a war aiming to force the infant Mary Queen of Scots’ betrothal to Henry VIII’s son, Prince Edward.  It was significant for being the first bastion fort to be constructed in Britain – i.e. a fort with low, earthen bank walls, ditches and strong bastions specifically designed to counter increasingly powerful cannon.  This fort stood for just three years before being demolished in accordance with the conditions of the 1550 Treaty of Boulogne.

French Fort

The second fort was built seven years later when Scotland and her ally, France, decided that they maybe should have kept it. A new, larger and more complex bastion fort was constructed in the style known to the French as trace italienne and then garrisoned by French troops.  This not only served to protect the border against any new English incursion but also constituted a whacking great threat in English eyes, forcing England to spend time, effort and resources on fortifying Berwick in response.

The second fort was even more ephemeral than the first had been. After just two years – and before it had even been fully completed – it was demolished again to comply with the 1559 Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis.

Having been demolished twice, there was not much of the fort to look at – basically some ditches and some cannon remounted after the fact to drive home to tourists that it used to be a fort.

Eyemouth Beach

Immediately south of the fort, the BCP descended some steps to deposit me on Eyemouth Beach.  This essentially returned me to my starting point from early that morning and would also mark the starting point of the walk I’d originally planned.  It also put me in an ideal position to first acquire some sandwiches from Eyemouth’s Co-op and then eat them peacefully on the promenade be physically assaulted by a seagull.

Seagull Attack!

One moment I was merrily eating my sandwich without a care in the world. The next there was a blow to the back of my head, as a herring gull tried to relieve me of it and smacked me with its wing in the process.  Unfortunately for it, I’ve encountered seagulls before and I was keeping my sandwich shielded just in case. It flew off, empty-beaked and slightly wobbly – it had just smacked its wing on my head – while an unrestrainedly laughing onlooker explained, in case it had stunned me senseless, that it had wanted my sandwich.

Yes, thanks. I’d noticed that.

The seagulls had apparently noticed its lack of success, as they didn’t even try a second attempt. There were no doubt easier marks to harass than this hungry mammal, who wouldn’t permit them a single peck and would headbutt their wings in defence.  This Harmful Mammal, even! (Other adjectives are available.)

About Eyemouth

Eyemouth is the largest town in Berwickshire, although admittedly this is because Berwick-upon-Tweed was captured by the English in 1482 and thus removed from the county.  This makes Berwickshire the only county in Britain named for a town now in a different country. 

One might perhaps expect that, as the next largest settlement, Eyemouth would have taken on the mantle of county town, but no; that honour swapped about between Greenlaw and Duns. If this seems odd it’s because Eyemouth is the largest town now, but was not always so. A fishing community, it saw significant growth associated with the herring boom of the late 18th and 19th centuries.

It is still home to fishing boats, though fewer of them now, as there are also fewer herring. But not fewer herring gulls, which explains why they’ve switched to Co-op sandwiches as an alternative food source.

The civic arms of Eyemouth allude to this industry with a green fish in the lower part of the shield (although, if your fish has gone green, I’d generally advise not to eat it). The shield also displays the silver lion on green of the Homes and the silver lion on black of Churchill – General John Churchill (1650-1722), who later became the 1st Duke of Marlborough, was initially created Lord Churchill of Eyemouth in 1682.

Eye Water

When I had determinedly and defiantly finished my unshared sandwich, I set about starting off on the actual walk I had originally intended for this day.  This involved me following the beachfront along as far as Eyemouth Harbour, where my eastward progress was curtailed.  The harbour sits at the mouth of Eye Water – which is an excellent name for a river – and I followed it upstream until I reached a bridge.

Eyemouth Marine

I crossed Eye Water next to the slipway and boat sheds of a boatyard. Servicing and maintaining fishing boats, leisure yachts and RNLI lifeboats, the boatyard belonged to Eyemouth Marine (est. 2017), but had been in existence since 1841, when it was established as Hall & Weatherhead by boatbuilder James Weatherhead (1814-1905) and his merchant mariner uncle, John Hall (b. 1796).

Williams II

The boat on the slipway was not built in Eyemouth, but was there to receive maintenance. She was Williams II, a 36 m ketch belonging to the charity Blyth Tall Ship, which makes her available for chartering and which also mounts periodic circumnavigations of Britain, training crews in tall ship operation.

Constructed in Rødvig in Denmark in 1914, Williams II originally served as a Baltic trader under the name Haabet (meaning ‘the hope’).

Haabet is an annoyingly popular name for Danish ships, which made researching her really difficult – there is another very similar-looking Haabet built in 1898 and operated by the Fåborg Wooden Ship Association (Træskibsforeningen Fåborg), for instance. But this particular Haabet was latterly based out of Svendborg, not Fåborg, before being bought, refitted and renamed by Blyth Tall Ship in 2019.

Williams I

Blyth Tall Ship’s purchase of Haabet was not a random choice. The charity, which is based in Blyth in Nothumberland, was celebrating the bicentenary of the accidental 1819 discovery of Antarctica by Blyth-based mariner William Smith (c. 1790-1847). Captain of the merchant brig Williams, he had been heading south in search of favourable winds to blow him round Cape Horn to Valparaíso. 

More specifically, Williams discovered the South Shetland Islands, which lie off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, but that still counts.

Because sailors are not unknown to concoct wild and unreliable tales, the authorities were not about to simply take his word that he had discovered unknown lands. The Royal Navy promptly chartered Williams, appointing Sailing Master Edward Bransfield (c. 1785-1852) as her temporary commander, with Smith remaining aboard as her pilot. The brig then headed south again allowing Bransfield to officially confirm that yes, there were islands down there, after all.

Necessary Substitution

The original Williams was built in Blyth in 1812 and sold off by Smith in 1822 to serve as a coaler, before eventually being broken up in 1882. 

This obviously made it impossible for Blyth Tall Ships to find and restore her, so they went in search of a substitute instead. Haabet proved to be of almost identical dimensions and similar construction and became even more similar following her extensive refit.

Gunsgreen House

From Eyemouth Marine, the BCP waymarks directed me back downstream to the harbour.  Overlooking my progress as I want were two related landmarks connected to another side of Eyemouth’s maritime history – Nisbet’s Tower and Gunsgreen House.

Gunsgreen House was built in 1753 for John Nisbet (1712-1796), who was ostensibly a prosperous local merchant but was actually a prolific smuggler.  It was designed by prominent architect John Adam (1721-1792), who seems not to have baulked at his client’s unusual requirements. These included capacious cellars with direct access to the sea  and a secret ‘tea chute’ in which tea could be concealed behind the walls. 

Tea at that time was subject to 119% tax, making it a profitable commodity for smuggling and Nisbet sourced his via two Scottish merchants in Sweden, John Sibbald and Henry Greig (1743-1798).

Alexander Robertson

His downfall came not at the hands of the authorities but those of a rival merchant, Alexander Robertson (1748-1804), who bankrupted him in court in 1789. Robertson was head of a prominent and established local mercantile dynasty and seems to have regarded Nisbet as a crass arriviste. To really drive his point home, he then bought Gunsgreen House at auction, while Nisbet sloped off to Berwick in sullen defeat.

Decline & Restoration

The house subsequently passed through marriage to a branch of the Home family, before being sold on in 1881. By 1912, it had become a guest house and  remained so until the mid-1960s, when it became a golf clubhouse. It later came into the possession of Scottish Borders Council, which permitted it to fall into dilapidated disuse.  In 1998 the Gunsgreen House Trust was established and this has restored the house as a museum. Its accompanying tower –a 19th-century folly dovecote – was converted into holiday accommodation in 2005.

Eyemouth Harbour

Looking at the map, I can see that the BCP veered off to the right at Gunsgreen House, cutting off a headland, but I did no such thing. I kept heading downstream alongside Eyemouth Harbour.

Long before any harbour piers were constructed, boats had used the natural haven of the river mouth for centuries as evidenced by harbourmaster John Kinghorn appearing in court in 1214 to explain why he was overcharging harbour dues.

The natural haven apparently sufficed for the next five centuries until 1747, when William Craw of Netherbyres constructed what became known as the Old Pier. This not only improved shelter but reduced silting, enabling the harbour to take larger vessels and helping to kickstart Eyemouth’s growth. A great storm destroyed the Old Pier in 1767 but it was soon replaced by an inevitably-named New Pier in 1773, designed by John Smeaton (1724-1792), the ‘father of civil engineering.’

Eyemouth Golf Club

Near the harbour mouth, I ascended onto the grassy headland and followed a footpath – but not the BCP – along the rocky shoreline.

The footpath almost immediately entered the course of Eyemouth Golf Club (est. 1884), and then stayed there for very nearly a full mile.

Daring

At Agate Point, the BCP decided that I might have the right idea and deigned to re-join me at the shoreline. Together, we then continued south to Daring, where we finally emerged from the golf course.

Daring seemed a singularly descriptive name for a cliff, so I consulted the OS Name Book used to help compile the 1st ed map in 1858. It had this to say:

‘A very perpendicular precipice overhanging Scout Cave, the summit of which is more than two hundred feet above the level of the sea. To descend this precipice in search of gulls’ eggs is considered by the fishermen to be a very daring feat, and the precipice is distinguished for this reason by the name of Daring.’

Blaikie Heugh

Daring was 200 ft or 61 m above mean sea level but the elevation still had more ‘up’ to achieve. It continued to rise steeply over Hawk’s Heugh, climbing to a summit of 103 m at Blaikie Heugh, which loomed high over Hurker’s Haven below.  This looked shockingly high if, say peering over the edge, but much less so if looking back overland to Eyemouth, where the relative change was more gradual.

The path here was sandwiched between field boundaries and the cliff edge, sometimes behind a wall and sometimes not.  In a few places it was quite obvious that it previously ran outside the wall but had since been rerouted on account of erosion. I was quite appreciative of that rerouting.

Burnmouth

Burnmouth Hill

I rounded Fancove Head, which involved a wearying drop back to 85 m, then re-ascent, followed by another descent on the other side.

Ahead of me now was Burnmouth Hill, which was thankfully half the prominence of the previous two hills – behind which I could already glimpse the village of Burnmouth and its harbour.

This Burnmouth Harbour was the one mentioned earlier that morning by the Uncertain Explorers on St Abb’s Head.

Upper Burnmouth

Burnmouth is actually something of a composite, comprising Upper Burnmouth, above the cliff line, and Lower Burnmouth at the water’s edge, along with the outlying hamlets of Cowdrait, Partanhall and Ross.

The Brae

Having traversed Burnmouth Hill, the BCP spat me out onto a road in Upper Burnmouth but it didn’t mean for me to stay there.  I was not terribly surprised when its waymarks directed me down The Brae, the 20% declined road that led down to Lower Burnmouth. 

I was a little more bemused when it then left The Brae, putting me instead on the private road to Partanhall (which sits beneath the steep coastal slope of Burnmouth Hill), and then more so again when it changed its mind again and took a shortcut back to The Brae.

Eventually, by this indecisive route, I found my way to the bottom and Burnmouth Harbour.

Burnmouth Harbour

Burnmouth bills its harbour as ‘the first harbour in Scotland,’ which it technically is if you’ve just come north from England.  It seems almost comically oversized for the village, but that’s just indicative of the former scale of the long since collapsed fishing industry.  The harbour was first built in the 1830s and extended in 1879 at a cost of £9,000 (equivalent to about £43½ k today).

The Eyemouth Disaster, which struck three years later, claimed 24 lives from this village.

The harbour was further extended in 1959 but by then the industry was doomed. The herring boats all moved away to better facilities in Eyemouth, leaving only a handful of crab and lobster fishermen to make scant use of the harbour’s expanse.

Lower Burnmouth

Lower Burnmouth mostly comprised a row of cottages immediately east of the harbour, beyond which the road continued to Cowdrait and Ross.

One reason for the trepidation was that I knew the road was a dead end and that there was no path around the base of the cliff. This meant that a steep climb back up to the top of the cliffs was probably lurking in my imminent future. I can’t really pretend that I was looking forward to that.

Cowdrait & Ross

Cowdrait and Ross are essentially one tiny cluster of buildings forming a satellite hamlet to Burnmouth but, for administrative purposes, they used to be counted as two. The reason for this is that the Catch-a-Penny Burn flows right through the hamlet, separating half a dozen of the cottages from the others and, tiny though that burn might be, it used to be the parish boundary. Accordingly, while Cowdrait was in the parish of Ayton along with Burnmouth, the neighbouring cottages of Ross were instead in Mordington.

As I approached the dual hamlet, a home-made sign warned me ‘slow children playing,’ presumably so I could I could avoid them. As it turned out, they were playing so slowly that they hadn’t yet made it outside. Either that or, like a Jurassic Park tyrannosaur, I can only see movement and they were just too slow to trigger it.

Lamberton

Lamberton Holdings

Although the coastal slope in general was alarmingly steep, the part climbed by the BCP in particular turned out to be less so, although it did still begin with steps.  The path then meandered its way up the surprisingly broad valley of the foot-wide Catch-a-Penny Burn (which did not itself meander) before depositing me into a field. 

At the top end of that field, I joined the surfaced access road for the farmstead of Lamberton Holdings. I then followed this road, or a footpath beside it, until I reached that farm.

At Lamberton Holdings, the access road ceased to be surfaced but continued past the farmhouse nonetheless and the BCP likewise kept going along it. This was, old maps reveal, a farm track that predates the farmhouse – it appears on maps from about 1905, while Lamberton Holdings doesn’t show up until the 1930s.  Old maps also show that it then crossed the railway to join up with a road, which I would not be able to do. Instead, I followed a narrow footpath that led off from it along the gap between the East Coast Main Line (ECML) and the North Sea.

Hilton Bay

For the next mile or so, I sometimes found myself screened from the sea by a narrow hillock, such as at Catcairn Bushes or Lamberton Skerrs, and I sometimes had a clear view as at Hilton Bay.  Both were quite pleasant in their own way and I particularly enjoyed this section of the walk.

Lamberton Skerrs

‘Skerrs’ or skerries are rocky tidal islets extremely dangerous to shipping, so Lamberton Skerrs might seem like a weird place to have been the site of a former fishing bothy.  But it was. And the fact that only a skilled seaman with local knowledge could safely land there was a bonus when the bothy was originally built. This is because, although it was later repurposed for the salmon-fishing industry, it was originally built for smuggling. Probably.

According to about a billion online accounts, all copying from either each other or from Wikipedia, the bothy was built circa 1760 by ‘the famous smuggler John Robertson’ – a smuggler of such great renown that I could learn nothing else about him. It adds that he was ‘in partnership with a Swedish shipping line’ and some other online sources add that he later came to own Gunsgreen House.

John Robertson?

Now, Wikipedia is a great place to start research and, in general, is no more inaccurate than any traditional hard-copy encyclopædia, but it’s hardly infallible. 

The problem here is that 1760 would be when John Nesbit’s smuggling in concert with merchants in Gothenburg would be in full swing.  And that the only Robertson to own Gunsgreen House was Alexander Robertson who then left it to his sister Margaret Home (née Robertson) in 1804. They don’t appear to have had any relatives named John, either, ruling out a familial conspiracy.

So, while I am absolutely willing to believe the bothy was built for smuggling – possibly by John Nesbit – I rather fear that its alleged ‘John Robertson’ provenance is nothing more than garbled nonsense.

Cuddy Trail

A little further on, I found myself surrounded by impressively unbothered sheep. I also encountered a small, battered sign extolling the virtues of the ‘Cuddy Trail.’

Cuddy is a Scots word for donkey, an animal better suited than I to this short trail, which made its vertiginous descent to the shoreline below Tod’s Loup. There, in the 1840s, a coal mine – Lamberton Colliery – had tunnelled into the cliff face.  In addition to donkey-trekking, they had used ropes and chains to haul sacks directly up and down the cliff-face and the sign informed me that the cliffs still bore their scars.

I paused to consider this possible diversion for somewhat less than a microsecond.

English Border

Just under half a mile later, I crossed the English border.

I had no idea, when I crossed into Scotland back in 2015, that it would take me an entire decade to walk the Scottish coast.  Granted, a global pandemic and lockdown ate two of those years, and my progress during the rest of them was highly intermittent on account of other demands on my time but, even so, that’s a lot longer than expected!

I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it though; it was all time well spent.

Berwick-upon-Tweed

Marshall Meadows Bay

Not far across the border was Marshall Meadows Caravan Park,  where the footpath morphed into part of the England Coast Path (ECP).  Back in 2010, when I first set off on my coastal circumperambulation, the ECP had been announced but not realised – the first part of it was opened in 2012. But I now found myself following actual ECP waymarks as they led me around and then through the caravan park, which was arranged facing Marshall Meadows Bay.

The bay is used as a reference point in measuring the length of England, being 426 miles from Land’s End as the crow flies. It is actually closer to Stavanger in Norway, which is only 360 miles across the North Sea.

Kelpers’ Tunnel

At the base of its cliffs is a suspiciously regular cave.  This is actually a tunnel, but not a smuggler’s tunnel, no matter how much local lore might wish it were. 

It was excavated circa 1846, well after the heyday of smuggling, when the North British Railway (NBR) – the future ECML – was opened. The line had severed a steep path down to the shore used to collect kelp for use as fertiliser and, for some reason, a tunnel was built instead of an overbridge.  The tunnel is steeply inclined and featured an internal tramway to haul the kelp up.

Long disused, it is now considered dangerous.

Marshall Meadows House

Close by was Marshall Meadows House, built as a merchant’s house in the 1780s and now England’s most northerly hotel.

Although I say it was built as ‘a merchant’s house,’ we don’t actually know the identity of its builder, only that he’d already sold it by 1788. Its first known resident was a merchant though, this being George Hogarth (1749-1832), a trader in salmon fishery licences. 

It thereafter passed through many hands and also experienced a stint as a tuberculosis hospital between 1939 and 1958.

Needle’s Eye

The path was noticeably rougher and less distinct as I continued south, but not problematically so. I followed it for another three quarters of a mile, after which I could see the fairly grim sight of the tall fence and industrial units of Ramparts Business Park on the other side of the ECML.  Fortunately, I had little reason to stare in that direction, and rather more to keep my attention on the coastline:

Brotherston’s Hole

The path became better-defined again as I drew closer to Berwick and the rough grassy terrain gave way to the neatly-manicured course of Magdalene Fields Golf Club (est. 1903). Adjacent to this was Brotherston’s Hole, which also featured caves.

Berwick Holiday Park

The golf club only occupied part of what had once been the open land of Magdalene Fields. Since the 1950s, another part has been the site of Berwick Holiday Park, whose caravans I now found myself edging around. As might well be expected, the path became suddenly busy with throngs of early-season holidaymakers.

Green’s Haven

The holiday park overlooked the disused fishing harbour of Green’s Haven. This was home to just three boats in 1799, but had risen to eighteen by 1881, only to be completely abandoned between the wars and given over to leisure – two bathing pools were cut into the rock ledge immediately south of it.

The steps down to the haven were marked as disused and dangerous when I passed them, though there are other routes by which the bay’s beach can be accessed.

Coast Watch Tower

Beyond the holiday park were more greens of the Magdalene Fields golf course, facing onto Berwick Beach.  Looking out over these was Berwick Coast Watch Tower, which was built for HM Coastguard in 1964 but then closed just four years later and relegated to use as a storage shed by the golf club.

It was reopened in 2003, following a major refurbishment project, and is now once again operated for its original purpose, albeit not by the coastguard. Today, the tower is manned by Berwick Coast Watch, an independent volunteer-run organisation that was founded in 2003 for precisely this purpose.

Berwick Pier

My pace was noticeably slowing due to fatigue as I turned into the mouth of the River Tweed and saw Berwick Pier with its lighthouse. 

The breakwater pier was built as part of harbour improvements begun in 1808 and partly occupied the foundations of an Elizabethan predecessor. It was designed by the celebrated engineer John Rennie (1761-1821), though it would not be completed until 1825, four years after his death. In total, it cost £61,536, which is equivalent to almost £5 million today.

The lighthouse was something of an afterthought, being added in 1826 to a design by Joseph Nelson (1777-1833). This was his fifth such endeavour, having already been responsible for lighthouses built at South Stack (1809), Bideford (1820), Bardsey Island (1821) and Longstone (1826).

River Tweed

The River Tweed flows for some 97 miles, mostly through the Scottish Borders. Of course, before England captured Berwick in 1482, it would have been entirely within the Borders.

A road dropped down from a small car park to the shore of its estuary, close to the foot of the pier. There, I found a convenient bench on which sit and rest, gazing across the Tweed to the Berwick suburb of Spittal.

Spittal’s name has nothing to do with spittle and everything to do with a hospital, specifically St Bartholomew’s leper hospital, which could be found there in mediaeval times.

And speaking of names…

South Berwick

Today, Berwick’s full name – Berwick-upon-Tweed – references the river that it straddles, but it was not always called that.  When it was still Scottish, Berwick was also known as South Berwick to differentiate it from North Berwick.

After 1498, this became redundant as the English didn’t have a second Berwick with which to confuse it. That also means there should have been no real reason to need to specify its river, either, but specified it is.

Berwick had swapped between England and Scotland several times prior to 1498, having first become Scottish in 1018. Prior to that it had been English or, before 927 when England was united under King Æthelstan (c. 834-939), Northumbrian.

Pier Road

The bench upon which I sat was located on Pier Road, which was built in 1816. This name suggests that the road was for access to the pier then under construction, which it was. But it was also made to encourage promenading, which was then very much the fashion.

When I had rested my weary legs for long enough, I decided to emulate my Regency forebears and promenade further into town.

Ness Gate

Pier Road led me upstream to an arch that looked very much like a bridge but which wasn’t, being instead Ness Gate, a passage through Berwick’s Elizabethan Ramparts.

The ramparts were a fortified defence to Berwick’s north and west, raised in 1558 in response to the French fort at Eyemouth and replacing an outdated mediaeval wall. However, while Eyemouth Fort was dismantled under treaty in 1559, the Berwick fortification work continued until completed in 1570.

A mile and a quarter in length, the Elizabethan ramparts remain intact and not only constitute Britain’s only example of bastioned town walls but also one of the best preserved examples of such in Europe.

Scotsgate

Beyond Ness Gate lay the town centre, with its streets lined with shops. I found my way onto Marygate – Berwick’s primary shopping street – and headed north, soon leaving the enclosure of the ramparts via a second arched gateway, namely Scotsgate.

This had been one of the original gateways but had since been altered twice – firstly in 1815 and then again in 1858. This had left it in the form of a triple archway, with one large arch over the Great North Road for traffic, flanked by  two smaller arches for the pedestrian footways.

Jubilee Fountain

Just outside Scotsgate stood a memorial drinking fountain, erected in 1897 to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (1819-1901).

The fountain’s inscription prominently proclaims that it was presented to the borough by former mayor Cdr Francis Martin Norman RN (1833-1918), which makes it as much about good PR for him as it was about Victoria.

In fairness to Cdr Norman, he was not only a prominent local politician (though he originally hailed from Kent) but also the founder of the town’s Historic Monuments Committee, which had restored the Elizabethan Ramparts, so it’s not like he was without merit. Even so, the fountain does rather smack of making the royal jubilee all about him.

Castle Hotel

From Scotsgate, it was a short quarter-mile stroll up the street named Castlegate to reach the Castle Hotel and the end of my walk.  I acquired some chocolate on my way up Castlegate and was glad to relax in my room and devour it, with no need to walk any further.

The names ‘Castlegate’ and ‘Castle Hotel’ rather point to there being – or having been – a castle and so there was. However, much of it was obliterated when they built Berwick-upon-Tweed railway station and, as I needed to go to the station to catch a train home in the morning, I figured I’d see then what few ruins remain.

Royal Border Bridge

Bridges were something else I’d see in the morning, as I nipped down to the nearby riverside while waiting for my train. This put me beside the Royal Border Bridge, opened in 1850 to serve the NBR. This was four years after the line up to Edinburgh had opened, during which time passengers had embarrassingly had to disembark and cross the Tweed by road.

Now Grade I listed, it was designed by Robert Stephenson (1803-1859), the son of railway pioneer George Stephenson (1781-1848) of Rocket fame.

White Wall

I’d diverted down to the riverside for three reasons, one of which was that I had time to kill waiting for my train. Another was to see the Royal Border Bridge above and the third to find some of those ruins associated with Berwick Castle.

In particular, there were the ruins of a gun tower, built sometime between 1482 and 1523, affixed to the White Wall, which was a fortification built by the English in 1296 during one of the periods when they’d just taken Berwick from the Scots and were trying hard not to give it back.  This ran from the riverside up a steep bank forming what became known as the Breakneck Stair.

The tower is now ruined, the castle’s a station and the white has long since washed from the wall, but the Breakneck Stair is still there, albeit fenced off to prevent people from proving its name:

Berwick Castle

The railway station was built on the site of Berwick castle, completely obliterating its main hall. But it’s not as if anything historic had ever hap– no, wait…

The Great Cause

As a small plaque on the station’s footbridge explains, it was in that great hall in 1292 that Edward I (1239-1307) adjudicated the Great Cause – a Scottish succession dispute – choosing the claim of John Balliol (1249-1314) over that of Robert the Bruce (1274-1329). 

That they’d asked him to judge this shows how desperate things had already become but, because this was much like asking a hungry fox to referee an argument amongst chickens, it would later get far, far worse, culminating in an English invasion of Scotland and the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296-1357).

Pass-the-Castle

Ironically, Berwick Castle had actually been built by the Scots, having been commissioned by David I (c. 1084-1153) in the 1120s. Much like Berwick itself, the castle then swapped between Scottish and English possession with alarming frequency.

Amongst others, its many governors included:

• Former Scottish ambassador to England Sir Robert Lauder of the Bass (d. 1337) in 1330, and:
• Sir Robert Ogle (c. 1305-1362) in 1355, and:
• His great-grandson, another Sir Robert Ogle (c.1370–1436) in 1423, and:
• Sir Robert Lauder of Edrington (descendant of the ambassador) in 1464, and:
• Sir Patrick Hepburn of Dunsyre, 1st Lord Hailes (d. 1483) in 1482. The latter lost the castle to Richard, Duke of Gloucester (1452-1485), who would later become King Richard III. Berwick would then never fall back into Scottish hands.

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This time: 18 miles
Total since Gravesend: 4,646½ miles

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