CCLVI – North Berwick to Dunbar

IT WOULD have been nicely synchronous if the last day of my August 2024 trip had also been the last day of that month but, alas, it wasn’t quite. Instead, the Lemming and I found ourselves alighting onto the platform of North Berwick station at some ungodly hour on the morning of the 29th, like the devil-may-care, unconstrained hikers we were inside our own heads, synchronicity be damned!  And then, in a manner more befitting of two blokes now both inexplicably in their fifties and whose previous day’s walk had been quite tiring, we struggled to find the energy to get going…

North Berwick

North Berwick Station

While we dithered, we remained at the terminus of our train’s journey, the station being the end of the North Berwick Line. This was opened in 1850 as a loss-making venture that served the sole purpose of staking the North British Railway’s claim to the area and thus excluding its competitors.  As things turned out, it then played a part in enabling North Berwick to grow into a holiday and golfing resort, since people could now get to it far easier, and this in turn created a period of profit and prosperity for the line.

The rise of motor transport saw these fortunes decline and by the 1960s British Rail – the NBR’s successor at that time – wanted to close the line down. Amazingly, this didn’t happen, although the line was singled. Diesel trains replaced steam, and were themselves replaced by electric ones when the line was electrified in the 1990s. And thus it was that we were still able to alight at the station.

After a short delay there, during which I reminded my knees that bending is part of their job description,  we finally set off on our day’s walk…

Elcho Green

We began by heading vaguely for North Berwick’s High Street, with the deliberate intention of not reaching it directly.  I knew that we’d intersect the John Muir Way at one of the junctions and we allowed that route’s waymarks to redirect us onto Elcho Green, an open green space overlooking West Bay Beach. 

From there, we could see two sizeable lumps of volcanic rock that gave testament to how much less safe it would have been to stand there, had we made a mix-up with the timetable and arrived 300 million years too early.

Looming Landmark

North Berwick Law had played an important role in the previous day’s walk, serving as a landmark that allowed us to gauge how close to North Berwick we had reached. Today, it would play a similar but slightly different role in letting us know how far we’d got away.

North Berwick High Street

The John Muir Way swung back inland and deposited us onto the High Street after all. The time was still unsociably early and most of the shops had yet to open. The few that were included one that could sell me a healthy and nutritionally-balanced breakfast of just chocolate, so I was happy.  And cocoa’s a plant, after all, so chocolate must count as a vegetable.

The Other Berwick

North Berwick originated as the southern end of a ferry crossing to Earlsferry, which was used by pilgrims heading to St Andrews. 

The burgh was directionally specified as North Berwick to distinguish it from South Berwick, which was an important port further down the east coast, close to the border with England. Unfortunately for Scotland, South Berwick was close enough to the border to be captured and recaptured in war several times and finished up as English in 1482.  England didn’t have a North Berwick to distinguish it from, so South Berwick is now known as Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The Earl’s Ferry

The pilgrims’ ferry was formalised by Duncan, Earl of Fife (1113–1154) in 1150, but probably predates him by a couple of centuries. It initially ran from Broad Sands, to the west of North Berwick, but then relocated to Kirk Ness, where the harbour is now. This, as its name suggests, was once the site of a church – St Andrew’s or the ‘Auld Kirk’ – built circa 1177 on what was then a rocky tidal island. The erosion of that island caused the church’s collapse in 1652, though its tower persisted as a navigational landmark until the early 19th century. A causeway has long since linked the islet’s remains to the mainland.

The pilgrim traffic died out with the Reformation, ending North Berwick’s status as a small but important ferry port and turning it back into the relatively insignificant place that it was when the railway arrived three centuries later.

The lighthouse-building Stevenson family had a cunning plan to reinstate the ferry in 1845 but it never came to pass.

St Andrew Blackadder

Perhaps sadly, the church is not named for the fictional Edmund Blackadder, nor for an Andrew Blackadder, even if that’s how its name looks, but for a Presbyterian Covenanter, John Blackadder (c. 1615–1685).

A staunch opponent of Charles II’s reintroduction of bishops to the Church of Scotland, he was arrested in 1681 and imprisoned on Bass Rock (an islet three miles east of Craigleith), where he died. The rock was within the parish of North Berwick’s St Andrew’s Kirk and he was buried in its graveyard.

Of course, 1685 is after the original Auld Kirk fell into the sea, so it was into its successor’s churchyard that he was interred. But that is not the church in the photo, which is the successor’s successor, completed in 1883.

Mergers and Acquisitions

The church gets the ‘St Andrews’ in its name from being the linear successor to the Auld Kirk that went for a swim. The ‘Blackadder’ part is there on account of the confusing dance of schisms and mergers that characterises Scottish Christianity.

The Free Church of Scotland split from the Church of Scotland in 1843 over landowners’ influence over church appointments and they built a new church on what is now Victoria Road, and named it after John Blackadder. Then, in 1868, the United Presbyterian Church – a merger of two other groups that had split off the Church of Scotland – built themselves another church – now known as the Abbey Church – at the western end of the High Street. 

Because that isn’t nearly confusing enough, the Free Church and United Presbyterian Church merged in 1900 to create the United Free Church of Scotland which meant the latter now owned two churches in North Berwick. This then merged back into the Church of Scotland in 1929, at which point it had three churches all serving the same parish.

The Church of Scotland kept the Abbey Church but merged the Blackadder congregation into St Andrew’s in 1989, combining the names of both churches. They then sold off the old Blackadder Church, which was bought by the Baptists and now serves as their church instead.

Old St Andrew’s Church

The less easily-confused may, if paying arguably more attention than is warranted, have spotted that there is still one church missing from this narrative, namely the immediate successor to the Auld Kirk and predecessor to the current one. 

That church, which could also confusingly be called the Auld Kirk – although obviously not the auldest – was completed in 1664 and in use until 1883, by which time it had become too small.  Plans to enlarge it were rejected on the basis that any extension would require relocating adjacent graves, so the current church was built on the site of its manse instead.

A manse – the Scottish term for the minister’s house, equivalent to an English vicarage – is usually close to the church and this site was no exception, Thus, the ruin of the second St Andrew’s can be found hiding directly behind the third one on the street known as Kirk Ports.

War Memorial

By cutting past the current church onto Kirk Ports, we had left the route of the John Muir Way.  And while we soon found it again, we basically missed some important waymarks and found ourselves going the wrong way along an alternative John Muir Way cycle route instead of the path that we wanted. 

We had already started to go awry when we encountered the North Berwick war memorial, but we hadn’t realised that yet.

The war memorial was sculpted by Alexander Carrick (1882-1966), a prolific monumental sculptor responsible for many other war memorials; he was essentially a local lad, hailing from nearby Musselburgh. 

In the case of North Berwick’s monument, he didn’t have free rein, though, as he was working to a design by prominent architect James Smith Richardson (1883-1970), who had grown up in North Berwick and had been appointed Scotland’s Inspector of Ancient Monuments in 1914.

Memorial Drinking Fountain

As yet oblivious to our error, the Lemming and I followed the curve of East Road as it started to belie its name and veer south. At this point, the road was sandwiched between a park known as Lodge Grounds and the East Links Putting Green.

Glancing at my map to check our progress, I quickly realised that we should be cutting through Lodge Grounds and that a sizeable stone wall was now between us and it.  Belatedly, we identified our error and turned about to retrace our steps.

At the point where we turned around was anther memorial of sorts, in the form of a drinking fountain. This was erected by the town council in 1939 to honour a bequest by burgh resident Isabella Catherine Lewis. She had been the daughter of Edinburgh grocer James Lewis, who had built a summer residence – Duneaton House – in North Berwick.

The burgh arms of North Berwick displayed a lymphad (galley) with a red lion figurehead, carrying four rowers and a robed and coroneted earl sat in her stern. A sun-in-splendour (i.e., with rays) shone upon the lymphad, while the sea was semée (scattered) with black and gold fish. This design can only be a reference to the Earl’s Ferry. Quite aside from the actual earl (a teensy bit of a giveaway), Duncan’s descendants used a red lion as their arms.

Man with Dog

The Lemming and I retraced our steps to close to the war memorial and found the waywark we had missed.  It didn’t help all that much.  The way onward into Lodge Grounds went through a gateway between two whitewashed building blocks that made up one former mansion, namely The Lodge of which the park was the grounds.  The trouble was, it wasn’t entirely obvious that this was a public route and not private property.

Fortunately, while we dithered, a man emerged from the gate, who was clearly out walking his dog. He had apparently never heard of the John Muir Way but he was able to confirm that this was the way to the park and so through it we went.

The Lodge

The Lodge is a complex of buildings built at various times between the early 18th and 19th centuries.

The oldest part is called the Wall Tower and was remodelled as a house by a Scotland’s senior judge, Sir Hew Dalrymple, Lord North Berwick (1652–1737). In 1699, he had purchased the North Berwick Estate from James Douglas, 2nd Marquess of Douglas (c. 1646-1700), who had been forced to sell by mounting gambling debts. 

The estate’s crumbling main residence, Tantallon Castle, was in no fit state to live in and so Lord North Berwick dwelt in The Lodge. He and his descendants then altered and extended it over the years.

The arms of the Marquess of Douglas quartered Galloway (1), Abernethy (2), Brechin (3) and Stewart of Bonkyl (4), with a Douglas inescutcheon (small shield) over all. The arms of Lord North Berwick were those of Dalrymple – nine gold lozenges on a blue saltire on gold – with the addition of two black water-bougets (stylised water bags suspended from a yoke) as a mark of difference.

Post-Dalrymple Decline

The lodge was given to North Berwick burgh in 1939 but slowly slipped into ruin, culminating in a 1962 plan to knock it down and build some council offices. This plan was not at all well received by the public and instead the National Trust for Scotland took over the Lodge and restored it as flats. 

This is probably why it looked like private property, because people do in fact live in it again.  But the way into the park was right through it.

Lodge Grounds proved to be a perfectly pleasant civic park with some splendid flower beds. We followed a path across it, emerging into a residential street called Lady Jane Road.

Lady Jane Road

This street took its name from The Lodge and its grounds, Lodge Grounds having also previously been known as Lady Jane Park. 

I believe the ‘Lady Jane’ in question was Jane Duncan, daughter of Admiral Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan (1731 –1804), victor of the 1797 Battle of Camperdown – I previously encountered his statue in Dundee.  Jane married Sir Hew Dalrymple-Hamilton (1774–1834), 4th baronet (the great-great-grandson of Lord North Berwick, who had also been the 1st Dalrymple baronet).

Her road led the Lemming and I to a path that in turn conveyed us to a residential close with the promising name Law View.

North Berwick Law

A volcanic plug, left standing when the cone it had plugged eroded away from around it, North Berwick Law rises incongruously from flat surrounding terrain to a height of 187 m.

I had been toying with the idea of taking the path to its summit but I was feeling less so inclined now that I was right at the foot of it.  The Lemming, who is normally one for gallivanting in high places with neither fear nor caution, was even less enthused by the suggestion so we remained firmly on the ground and restricted ourselves to looking up at the thing as we made our way around it.

John Muir Way

Bonnington

From North Berwick Law, we followed the John Muir Way waymarks as they led us alternately down footpaths and farm tracks across open fields to the hill’s south. On the way, we passed the farmhouse of Bonnington. As we got further south and then east, the red sandstone façade of its mid-18th century farmhouse stood out clearly against the Law behind it.

Balgone Barns Windmill

Forlornly standing guard over a nearby field was the ruin of Balgone Barns Windmill. Built in the late 17th century as a barley mill, it stands atop an underground vault, which is a peculiarly Scottish arrangement.

At some point in the 18th century, it ceased to be used for milling and was noted on Captain Alexander Armstrong‘s 1778 Map of the Three Lothians as a dovecot. It was still noted as such on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map in 1854.

Historic Environment Scotland’s record of it notes there is no actual evidence of flight holes for the pigeons, but they could have been in the top part that has collapsed, assuming it still had a roof at all (which it certainly doesn’t now).

Balgone Barns

The John Muir Way carefully avoided the farm of Balgone Barns itself, which seemed a wise precaution. The sort of farm that would create a giant pigeon pipe bomb is probably one to stay away from. Who knows what other avian insanity awaits there?

As we followed the footpath south across a field to Balgone Barns’ east, North Berwick Law diminished pleasingly. Our distance from it had now shifted sign to become one positive mile.

Leuchie House

Off to the east of us, screened by trees, was Leuchie House. This was another property purchased by Lord North Berwick and was rebuilt by his grandson, Sir Hew Dalrymple (1712-1790), 2nd baronet and then extended by Sir Hew Dalrymple-Hamilton, 6th Baronet (1814–1887).

The Hamilton name had been added by Sir Hew Dalrymple, 3rd Baronet (1746–1800) and derived from his grandmother Johanna Hamilton of Bargany (1690-1719). The Dalrymple-Hamiltons mostly divided their time between Leuchie and the Lodge until they sold the latter in 1939.

In the 1960s, Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple, 10th Baronet (1926–2018) moved into a smaller property and let Leuchie House to an order of Montfortian nuns, the Daughters of Wisdom (Filles de la Sagesse). It later became a respite centre run by the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Since 2011, Leuchie House has been an independent charity with the same purpose.

To go with the Hamilton name, the Dallrymple-Hamiltons also quartered their arms, with Dalrymple of North Berwick in the first and fourth quarters and Hamilton of Bargany in the second and third. The latter comprised the usual Hamilton quartering of three ermine cinquefoils (Hamilton) and a lymphad (Arran) with a blue and white bordure compony for difference, charged with red hearts and white mullets (stars).

East Wood

Between Leuchie House and Redside farm, the John Muir Way got back off the road by diverting onto a narrow footpath, which then plunged into East Wood.  This was a small but dense patch of trees lying to the east of Balgone House.

Balgone House

Balgone House is an 18th century mansion built on the site of a mediaeval tower house, some of which is incorporated into its fabric.

The original tower house was built by the Lauders of the Bass, who also owned a castle perched upon Bass Rock.  Their possession of it spanned about three centuries but ended, as these things often do, with financial crisis and a hasty sale of the land. Its new owner, in 1624, was Thomas Hamilton, 1st Earl of Haddington (1563-1637), although he actually acquired that title two years after the purchase.

For some reason, Thomas chose not to hang onto Balgone and, in 1632, it passed to James Ross of Halkhead, 6th Lord Ross (d. 1633), just in time for him to pop his clogs. Subsequent Lords Ross retained it until the 1640s, after which it passed to the Semple family, to whom they were related, and then through a Semple heiress to the Suttie family in 1680. They had the house considerably extended.

Dalrymple Connectiom

Sir James Suttie of Balgone (d. 1736) married his neighbour’s daughter – Elizabeth Dalrymple, daughter of Lord North Berwick – tying together these two local landowning dynasties. Their son, Sir George Suttie, 3rd baronet (1715–1783), remodelled the grounds, laying out formal gardens.

The house remained in Suttie, and then Grant-Suttie, hands until 1989, when it was sold. It remains a private residence today, as signs at its gateways are very keen to tell you. Not that I fault the current owners for that.

Craigmoor Wood

South of Balgone House, we emerged from the wood into a what appeared to be a clearing, but I wasn’t having it.

The path then followed the edge of Craigmoor Wood. There, a handy bench allowed us both to sit and rest, while taking in the view.

Traprain Law

Thankfully, we hadn’t doubled back on ourselves and North Berwick is not the only law in the land.  The volcanic lump upon which we now gazed was the 221 m-high Traprain Law, some 4¼ miles due south of our position.

Although we would get a bit closer than this, it did not really lie upon our route, which almost surprised me, for all that it was in the wrong direction. Normally, the people who lay out long distance path waymarks can’t resist going straight over the top of hills like that.

Traprain Law Treasure

Traprain Law was the site of an ancient hill fort, which may have been the oppidum (fortified town and administrative centre) of the Votadini tribe.

Evidence for its importance includes the the Traprain Law Treasure , discovered within the hill fort’s bounds in 1919. This was the largest hoard of Roman silver  – weighing 24 kg or 53 lb – ever found outside the borders of the Roman Empire.

The hoard included coins from three emperors, namely Valens (328–378), Arcadius (377–408) and Honorius (384–423).  The latter’s reign lasted from 393 until his death and included the final withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britannia in 410, which put Traprain Law further than ever from the empire’s border.

Old Stonelaws

From Craigmoor Wood, we crossed over a road and then followed a footpath heading south alongside a farm track.  This led us to and then past Old Stonelaws, which looked like an old Georgian farmhouse but wasn’t. It was actually built in the 1990s, replacing one of three derelict farm cottages and incorporating two others.

Waughton Castle

A half mile west of Old Stonelaws (and our path) lay the ruins of Waughton Castle. Until they sold it in 1650, this 14th-century castle belonged to the Hepburns of Waughton apart from a short period in the late 16th century, when they were out of favour and it was held by Sir John Carmichael (d. 1600) of Fenton Tower.

The Hepburns also acquired Luffness Castle in 1464, the site of which the Lemming and I had passed on our previous walk.

The arms of Hepburn of Waughton quartered those of Hepburn (two red lions and a rose upon a silver chevron on a red field) with those of Rutherford (a red orle on silver with three black martlets in chief). Sir John Carmichael, who briefly held the castle, employed an unusual wreathed fess design in red and blue on a silver field.

From the 1700s onwards, the castle was quarried as a convenient source of stone, leading to its current ruination. Unfortunately, its walls being now much reduced in height, we never saw them from the footpath. Thus, we continued onwards without getting so much as a glimpse.

Stonelaws

A quarter mile further along the path, we came to Stonelaws Cottages and then Stonelaws farm.  We couldn’t see the castle from there either, but that was okay, because one farm resident was extremely keen that we spare no attention for anything but them.

Kamehill

Half a mile south from Stonelaws, we came to another farmstead, namely that of Kamehill. 

Here, we encountered a cluster of young backpackers milling about the path in a manner that suggested that their own hiking adventure was just about to begin.  While they looked full of boundless energy, ours was starting to flag so, when we had successfully squeezed past them (they were mostly blocking the path), the Lemming and I resolved that when we next found a good place to stop, a sandwich break would be in order.

Newbyth Old Mansion

As we continued south, looking for a likely spot in which to devour our sandwiches, we spotted the castellations and turrets of Newbyth Old Mansion peeking above distant trees.  Despite its desperate attempt to look as castellated as it can be, the building is a 19th-century gothic mansion, not a medieval castle, though it does occupy the site of an earlier tower house.

The estate was acquired in 1655 by Sir John Baird of Byth (1620-1698), who had it named Newbyth after his previous Aberdeenshire estate. A prominent judge, he was ennobled as Lord Newbyth in 1664.  His son, Sir William Baird (1654–1737), had a palatial mansion constructed, though not the one we see today. His line died out in 1745 and Newbyth passed to a distant cousin from the Bairds of Saughtonhall.  In 1813, under this branch’s tenure, the mansion burnt down and was completely replaced by the structure now standing, architected by Archibald Elliot (1761-1823).

In 1828, Newbyth was inherited by General Sir David Baird (1757-1829), who had led the 1799 storming of Seringapatam in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798-99). The house then remained in Baird hands until 1946, when it was sold. After several decades as a Ministry of Defence storage facility, it was converted into flats in 1973.

East Linton

Drylaw Hill

The path became quite narrow and flanked by vegetation south of Kamehill but then broke back out into the open at Drylawhill Farm before climbing Drylaw Hill.  This was hardly a mighty mount by law standards, being only 60 m at the summit in absolute terms and about 30 m in relative prominence to the surrounding terrain, but it did provide an excellent spot for that sandwich break we had wanted.

East Linton High Street

Having enjoyed my Not Very High Tea, I now had a hankering for actual tea, in a teacup, and possibly a nice slice of cake as dessert.  Fortunately, this was no idle fancy – our route was about to take us into the village of East Linton, where finding such a thing was almost certain.

The Lemming and I passed through a gate and exited the farm track, now finding ourselves at the end of East Linton’s High Street, which was also the B1377. This soon became lined with cottages and houses, which were then followed by occasional shops.

The Square

Facing onto a small triangle of green space inaccurately named The Square, we found a small café called Votadini.  Tea and cake were purchased within and thankfully did not require 24 kg of silver in order to do so.

Preston Road

When I had sufficiently indulged myself with tea and cake and the Lemming, who is not big on cake, had patiently indulged my indulgence, we set about trying to walk off at least some of the calories I’d consumed.

In order to reach Votadini, we’d diverted off the John Muir Way, so our first task was to regain it by backtracking just as far as the junction of the High Street and Preston Road. This we then followed to just beyond Prestonkirk Church, a red sandstone affair dating mostly to 1770, apart from its tower, which was built in 1631.

From the church, a footpath veered off to the right to join the banks of the River Tyne.  This was not the same Tyne as the English one flowing through Newcastle, but a 30-mile stream rising in the Moorfoot Hills and meeting the sea at Belhaven.  A weir spanned the stream where the path joined it.

Preston Mill

The path was heading for a footbridge, which would carry us over the Tyne. A couple of signs tried hard to divert us, however, by pointing to Preston Mill. 

This is an old 18th-century watermill on a 16th-century mill site, which ground oatmeal until it closed in 1959.  It now belongs to the National Trust for Scotland and, although it no longer operates commercially, its 1908 water wheel is still turned by the Tyne and the milling machinery is intact.

It was certainly tempting, but we elected to get no closer than this:

River Tyne

Houston Mill

On the opposite bank of the Tyne, close to the weir, was another 18th-century mill – Houston Mill. This is now a private residence but it has a claim to history as the home and workplace of the millwright and engineer Andrew Meikle (1719-1811), which purpose it served between 1750 and 1783. 

His name probably means nothing to you unless you’re really into early agricultural and industrial machinery, but he invented the mechanical threshing machine – a device to separate grain from stalks and husks – circa 1786.  Granted, this was three years after he left Houston Mill, but he’d tried several unsuccessful designs over the previous decade while he was there. In any event, you can be certain that when the mill was up for sale in 2016, the sales blurb made a really big noise about this former resident.

In truth, the threshing machine was a big deal. Prior to its invention, threshing was done by hand using flails, a back-breaking, labour-intensive task. Of course, the threshers it then put out of a job might not have been entirely enthused.

Promising Apprentice

Houston Mill’s other (but related) impressive historical connection, seems to have slipped past the 2016 estate agents largely unnoticed.

In the 1770s, a local lad – a farmer’s son from nearby Phantassie – apprenticed in Andrew Meikle’s workshop and would go on to become one of Scotland’s great engineers and build many bridges and canals. The lad in question was John Rennie (1761-1821).

Knowes Mill

Having finally hit upon a threshing machine design that worked, Andrew Meikle patented it in 1788. By then, he was no longer at Houston Mill but he hadn’t gone far, having relocated just over a mile downstream to Knowes Mill.  This was an 18th-century corn mill.

Of course, when we say that these mills were all 18th-century, we’re basically saying that they’re old now, but we’re also saying that they were quite new  in Meikle’s day.

Having crossed the Tyne to its south bank, the Lemming and I soon crossed back near Phantassie and would cross a third and last time at Knowes Mill.  There, we had a choice of crossing methods, these being a nice, safe footbridge or a signposted dangerous ford:

Much as I love splashing across a ford, not having to do so is generally the easier option and I entertained the idea of fording the Tyne for mere seconds at most. We used the footbridge and thus survived the experience unscathed.

Tyninghame Bridge

Back on the southern bank of the Tyne, we followed it downstream to Tyninghame Bridge, under which we then passed. This carried the A198 and was built in 1931 but, unlike its typically concrete contemporaries, it was constructed from stone (mainly red sandstone rubble).  Its datestone notes that it replaced a narrower bridge, which had stood since 1800.

It appears that it had stood there a couple of decades longer than that, though, as the original  bridge was built by Andrew Meikle in 1778.

Tyninghame Bridge is not to be confused with Tyningham Dam Bridge, which spans the Mill Lade a quarter mile further north. That bridge was built circa 1840 by engineer George Sked, who also constructed a neighbouring sawmill in 1828, together with one Thomas Hannan.

Ware Road

From Tyninghame Bridge, the John Muir Way turned right and ran south alongside the A198 for about a quarter mile, before turning left onto the Ware Road.  This, despite its ‘road’ designation, was a dirt track heading down to the shore of the Tyne Estuary.

Ware in Scots means ‘seaweed,’ particularly saw wrack and kelp, which would be harvested from the beach and then ploughed into the fields to act as fertiliser for cereal crops. Thus, the Ware Road was an access track, leading to what was once an important harvesting ground.

Hedderwick Sands

Even though we had only walked about 3¼ miles since our tea and cake stop in East Linton, the Lemming and I took advantage of a handy bench and took another breather by the estuary. It was just too lovely not to sit and take it in.

Eventually, though, we got moving again, following the John Muir Way along the southern shore of the estuary, next to Hedderwick Sands. Here, a row of WW2 anti-tank blocks ran alongside the path.

Tyninghame House

Technically, from Hedderwick Sands, we could see Tyninghame House on the estuary’s far side. By which I mean we could just about glimpse the top of its chimneys and turrets peeking over distant treetops.

The property of the Bishops of St Andrews from 1250 until the Reformation, Tyninghame was leased to the Lauders of the Bass, who later came to own it outright. They kept it until 1621, when it was sold to John Murray, 1st Earl of Annandale (d. 1640), an ambitious courtier.

Lord Annadale paid 200,000 merks for the property, a merk being a coin worth two thirds of a Pound Scots. Thus, he paid about £133,333 Scots, which was equal to £11,111 Sterling. According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, that’s equivalent to about £2½ million today.  Despite this staggering outlay, he was happy to sell the house on just seven years later.

Hamilton Ownership

The house’s new buyer was Thomas Hamilton, 1st Earl of Haddington (who had bought Balgone house just four years earlier). Acquiring Tyninghame might well be why he ditched Balgone, as he and his descendants kept this house much longer, rebuilding it in 1829 to a design by William Burn (1789-1870). 

They eventually disposed of it in 1987, when John Baillie-Hamilton, 13th Earl of Haddington (1941-2016) inherited the title and already had a home at Mellerstain House in Berwickshire.  Tyninghame House was then divided into flats.

The Earl of Annandale’s arms featured the usual three silver mullets on blue of Murray but heavily differenced by the addition of a crescent, a tressure and a silver canton bearing a crowned thistle. From the 10th earl onwards, the Earls of Haddington bore the surname Baillie-Hamilton and quartered the previous earls’ arms with those of Baillie of Jerviswood.

Hedderwick Burn

Our journey along the estuary shoreline ended at the mouth of the Hedderwick Burn. There, the path cut inland along the southern edge of the Hedderwick Hill Plantation.  Before we followed it, we paused to look back upon the estuary over Hedderwick Sands.

Dunbar

West & East Links

The footpath carried us along the edge of the Hedderwick Hill Plantation and past Hedderwick Hill farm, which is labelled as West Links on older maps.  Directly to the east of this, exactly where you’d expect to find it, was East Links, which today is the East Links Family Park. 

This was basically a petting farm, with child-friendly animal enclosures and a bouncy castle, but arguably its key attraction was a circuit of narrow-gauge railway. That’s what grabbed our attention, anyway.

Belhaven Bay

Depending on which map you look at, Belhaven Bay is either the whole broad embayment into which the Tyne empties, or is just the smaller sub-embayment immediately west of Dunbar.  Whichever it is, it first presented to us as a seemingly grassy expanse, which turned out to be a bit marshy in places and backing golden sands.

We could have headed out onto the sands and crossed Biel Water by means of the tidal Belhaven Bridge, but the John Muir Way took a more cautious route.  This crossed Biel Water above the beach and then carefully edged around the bay until it reached Belhaven.

Belhaven

Belhaven was the original port for Dunbar and takes its name from that role, being the haven at the mouth of Biel Water.

Belhaven has long been associated with brewing, starting with mediaeval monks from the Isle of May, and is today home to the Belhaven Brewery, founded in 1719.  This entered the 21st century as the largest independent brewery in Scotland but its independent days were numbered and, in 2005, it was purchased by Suffolk-based Greene King (est. 1799) for £187 million, which is roughly equivalent to 75 Tyninghame Houses.

Following the takeover, Belhaven Brewery has continued to maintain its own identity and branding and can still legitimately claim to be the oldest working brewery in Scotland.

Winterfield Golf Club

I have to admit that I’m rather partial to Belhaven Black stout, though after a warm day of walking, I wanted something more rehydrating than beer.  Having now reached the edge of Dunbar, I was fairly confident that I would soon have the opportunity to precure such a beverage but, first, we had a stretch of coastline to traverse as the path followed the perimeter of Winterfield Golf Club (est. 1935).

Dunbar Castle

As we would subsequently choose to head for Dunbar railway station and not make a dead-end diversion to the harbour, the above was the best view of Dunbar Castle that we were going to get.

The ruins are the remains of a structure deliberately slighted in 1567, but that stood on a site that had been repeatedly fortified down the ages, going all the way back to the Votadini. Later, in the 7th century, it was the site of a stronghold within the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia and then, after Bernicia merged with Deira in 654, of Northumbria.

Earl Gospatrick

It is fitting then, that its first ‘proper’ stone castle was also said to have been built by a Northumbrian, namely Gospatrick, Earl of Northumbria, who was stripped of lands and title and exiled by William the Conqueror (c. 1028-1087) in 1072. Gospatrick fled north to Dunbar, which by then had become part of Scotland, and was granted the earldom of it by his cousin, Malcolm III (c.1031-1093).

Titled variously as Earls of Lothian,  Earls of Dunbar or Earls of March, his descendants would continue to hold the castle until 1457, when it was demolished.

Various Captains

Rebuilt in 1497, it was held by Andrew Forman (c. 1465-1521), Archbishop of St Andrews, and then John Stewart (1482-1536), 2nd Duke of Albany. They were followed by about half a dozen more captains of the castle, from various prominent families, until it was eventually slighted on the orders of the Parliament of Scotland.

Field Gun

The Lemming and I turned inland after Winterfield Park, joining Bayswell Road. There, we discovered that though Dunbar has long since lost its castle, it is not entirely defenceless. Mounted on the part of the seafront known as The Glebe was a 25-pound Mark II field artillery gun.

The field gun in question was a survivor from WW2, in which weapons of this kind had proved highly effective. It later played the role of the One o’ Clock Gun at Edinburgh Castle but was retired from that duty in 2001. 

It has been enjoying a leisurely retirement by the sea on the Glebe since 2005.

Dunbar Lido

From 1931 until 1985, the Glebe overlooked the largest outdoor swimming pool complex in Scotland but, in keeping with a depressing trend, Dunbar failed to hold on to this superlative and demolished it. 

A new indoor Leisure Pool building eventually opened close by in 1992, but all that remains of the original is this small amount of decorative stonework, repurposed into civic art:

The top carving in the photo above is the burgh coat of arms, which depicted a silver triple tower atop a rock ‘proper’ (i.e. depicted in natural colours), all on a red field. These arms are currently used by Dunbar Community Council.

Dunbar High Street

Bayswell Road carried us east to a mini-roundabout that formed a junction with the High Street and Victoria Street. The latter could have conveyed us to the harbour and a closer look at Dunbar Castle, but I still wanted that cold drink and we both felt like we’d done enough.  Accordingly, we chose the High Street.

Dunbar Town House

Having acquired a cold drink from a shop, I drank it down thirstily, while looking at Dunbar Town House.  Built in 1593, this was the home of the town council until its abolition in 1975, and is now both a Registry Office and the meeting place for the community council. It also houses a small local history museum.

A 1997 statue of John Muir (1838-1914), by Ukrainian sculptor Valentin Ivanovich Znoba (1929-2006) stands atop a rock in front of the Town House.

John Muir

John Muir, for whom the John Muir Way is named, was a Scottish-American who played a huge role in the creation of the US National Parks. He was born in Dunbar, but emigrated (with his family) at the age of 11.

What John Muir didn’t do, of course, is have any connection to the John Muir Way, that path being created a century after his death, in a country he spent little time in.

Naming it after him apparently caused some vigorous debate but, ultimately, the path’s creators felt that it was a fitting commemoration in line with Muir’s ardent belief that it is important for human wellbeing to connect with nature. I can’t argue with that.

Dunbar Station

From the Town House, it was a final quarter-mile stroll to Dunbar Station.  This was opened in 1846 by the NBR, with a second platform added by Network Rail in 2019 to simplify train movements.

The station sits on the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh, which meant that our train back to the latter was fast and direct.

In seemingly no time at all, we were back in Edinburgh. A leisurely evening followed, as should follow an active day.

The next day we both had trains to catch, heading for our respective homes. And, with that, my 2024 coast walk instalment was concluded!

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This time: 16 miles
Total since Gravesend: 4,604 miles

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