I'm Bruce Fummey, and I'm standing on the Scottish/English border, and I mean literally on the border.
I came down here to make a couple of videos about the Border Reivers of the 16th Century,
and I discovered a couple of really interesting quirks about the Scottish/English border that
I bet most of you didn't know, but if you stick with me you're going to find out today.
If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then click the
subscribe button at the bottom right hand side of the screen. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
Now the buildings there are the back of the hotel
that I'm staying in for three nights, as I film videos about the Border Reivers.
I promised my wife a summer holiday, and this is it. In fact, her summer holiday's holding that camera! Ha, ha, ha.
Stop it!
Now the first thing that I'm going to tell you about is something that I hinted at in my
video 'How did Scotland get its Borders'. Now I'll leave a link to that video at the end, but this is
actually the bit of the border that I refer to here. That wooden bridge goes over a ditch and it's
called Scott's Dyke, but for hundreds of years the lands around here were called the debatable lands.
For the most part, the border between Scotland and England was decided by Alexander the Second of Scotland,
and Henry the Third of England at the Treaty of York in 1237. It goes along the River Tweed from the east,
to Carham, turns south for a bit, and then it heads west to where the Kershopfoot Burn meets the
Liddel Water, which continues to the River Esk, over there, and ultimately to the Solway Firth,
except it doesn't quite do that. Now back in the day, somebody had to protect the border. On each
side there were Marcher Wardens to make sure that there were no incursions by other side hanky-panky.
On the Scottish side, the Scotts, the Johnstones, and the Maxwells, kept an eye on things. On the
English side there was a March Warden in Carlisle. The problem, was that this chunk of land, this
territory here between the River Esk, and the River Wark was a bit uncertain. These were called
the Debatable Lands. In that area you'd find the Armstrongs, the Grahams, the Elliots and the Bells.
Now the problem was, that these families were too powerful for the March Wardens to easily deal with,
but not a big enough problem to justify an army from London or Edinburgh.
Truth be told, both London and Edinburgh were probably quite glad to have a buffer zone,
but it meant that these families tended to act with impunity, nipping across whatever border
they liked to nick stuff, and never really been firmly dealt with. Now James the Fifth tried to
deal with the Armstrong's on this side of the border, and I've made a video about that. I'll leave a link.
Spoiler alert, it wasn't until after he was dead and his daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots was on the
throne in 1552, that an agreement was finally reached, sealed by the French Ambassador. Here in
the west, the border would run from the source of the River Wark, across to the point of the
River Esk, opposite the house of Fergus Graham. I'd be tempted to get Fergus Graham to move to
Hastings and bingo, you've got a new territory. It's effectively what Tony Blair did with the sea border
in the other direction before giving Scotland devolution. That oil won't drill itself you know.
Burning carbon's bad, I was just making a point about the border.
Now that line between two rivers would be split, so that the English got the eastern side,
with the main road north, and the Scots got the western side with a lot of bog and moorland.
Who doesn't like a bit of bog and moorland, let's be honest? Now to ensure that there were no further
disputes, they built a mound here called the Scots Dyke, as the demarcation line, and that's the one
where we're standing .. I'm actually doing this Scotland History Tour in England, but only just, but I've
got an even more interesting quirk of the border that I want to show you, and it wasn't due to
the diplomacy of kings, queens or ambassadors, but much more ordinary folk. Let's head east.
We've just had three wonderful nights at the Marchbank Hotel, Longtown. The food was fantastic,
and I'm not a big eater! Anyway, you must stay there if you can,
but we've come east, and this is the River Tweed, the border between Scotland and England.
The border is the centre point all the way along the river, but this field on the English side of
the Tweed is Scottish. Now I don't know how the farmer is going to get his tractor into this
field in an independent Scotland, but it'll be the bridgehead for a military assault when we
eventually take them over, seeing as Fergus Graham didn't move to Hastings. Sadly somebody's going to
take that joke seriously and there'll be aggressive rants in the comment section!
What can I say? Social media and modern politics are an inflammatory mix. So why is this field
part of Scotland? Let me show you in a Google map. I'm standing here, I'm hoping that you can see
that the border at this point, leaves the river and traces out the shape of a field next to me.
The border goes a bit like this. I'm assuming I'll get the graphics done later. If you can see my face,
I haven't. Now you'll see on the English side of the border, on the other side of this field, there's
a village called Wark. They've got a ruined castle that David the First besieged, but that's another
story. On the Scottish side of the river, there's a town called Coldstream. Now way back in the day
they were both little villages, and once a year they'd play a ball game. You know that
big stramash (brawl) type early prototype form of football, rugby, whatever you'd call it.
Today this field is corn, but if we look further into the field, and deeper into the past
we'd apparently see a rectangular area, that had been enclosed close to the river bank here.
Apparently there'd also have been a post, that lined up with it on the Scottish side,
because apparently this piece of land, is the ball green where they played. Each year, the men of
Coldstream played a ball game against the men of Wark. Incidentally why not join my team by getting one
of my groovy t-shirts, hoodies or mugs in the shop below this video right. You get a translation of it
as well right, okay it's brilliant. Anyway whoever won the ball game kept this piece of ground until
the next year. One year this field was part of England, the next year it might be part of Scotland,
and so the border altered each year based on the result of the ball game. Now over time,
Coldstream in Scotland grew bigger, whilst the English Wark remained a cute little village,
and as the Scots began to win year after year, it was clear that football wasn't coming home at all!
That's why this field, on the south part of the Tweed remains forever Scotland. Isn't that
a quirky and interesting part of the border? I've got a whole video on 'How Scotland got its Borders',
and you can find it here. In the meantime, tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.