Building Berwick Old Bridge (Twixt Thistle and Rose)

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Old Berwick Bridge has recently re-opened after essential repairs and a further £250,000 has been allocated for maintenance during 2019/2020. It is a well-used crossing of the Tweed, popular with visitors and locals alike and it has a very well documented history – including a record of all the names of the people who built it and what it cost.

Increase in costs for tide work

The old bridge has linked both sides of the Tweed at Berwick for about 380 years. According to Fuller’s History of Berwick work ended on the 24 October 1634 having taken “twenty-four years four months and four days”. The construction was a major feat of engineering – working around tides and the powerful surges of the river. Although at times convoluted, both the King and the Guild saw the building of permanent crossing of the Tweed at Berwick as a crucial investment and symbolic too.

Supplies of building materials for Berwick Bridge, 1613

The building of a stone bridge over the Tweed at Berwick marked the end of hostilities with Scotland on the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne in 1603. Berwick had been, for centuries, a town at war. From 1482 to 1601 it had a Governor appointed by the Crown and was occupied by a large garrison. The crown paid for repairs to the castle, the fortifications and the old wooden bridge (which was often washed away in floods) as it was a strategic military base.

Summary bridge accounts 1612-1613 (H1/1)

The Earl of Dunbar – George Home – who held a series of royal appointments in Scotland and England under James I/VI had been granted the fortifications of Berwick when the garrison was disbanded. He was instrumental in making the case for the building of a stone bridge, proposing how it should be funded and appointing, for life, the bridge surveyor and designer, James Burrell. Home’s funding scheme gave way to other arrangements but Burrell stayed the course.

Particular payments for work beginning the 11 May 1622

The “particular accounts” for the building of the bridge from 1611-1635 (H1/1-4) survive in the borough archives – volumes that Fuller cites extensively in his History of Berwick. The other side to the story is found in records held at The National Archives (such as The Exchequer Pipe Rolls – declared accounts for the building of Berwick Bridge ref: E 351/3585) as this was a crown enterprise. Indeed, the bridge building accounts held in the Berwick Archives might not be so”particular” had they – and the works – not been routinely audited by royal inspectors. These included the Bishop of Durham and the poet Fulke Greville in his role as Chancellor of the Exchequer (Source: The History of the Kings Works Vol IV (part II), Colvin et al pp.774-775, HMSO 1982).

Payment to Foulke Reynards Master of the good ship the “Boweringe of Stavering” for freight of oak trees, coal, oakum, holly wood, rope and steel from Newcastle to Berwick, to John Wylde the pilot from Newcastle to Berwick and to Henry Scott and his “fellowes for their pains and their bote” in helping the ship up Berwick River, 1614

The accounts describe materials used at different points in the construction, the use of oak from the royal estate at Chopwell near Blaydon, the freight of coal, oyster shells and stone by sea, and the people – men, women and boys (all named) – who built the bridge.

Timber from Chopwell Woods, 1613

The accounts for subsequent repairs by Guild and the Town Council are also held by the Berwick Records Office to 1835 as Bridge Account volumes, later as part of the annual reporting of accounts.

Today the bridge is the smallest of the three that span the Tweed at Berwick but in it’s day it would have made a significant impact on the landscape. It was clearly a source of civic pride as funds were routinely levied on the burgesses for it’s upkeep – in addition to the Crown costs of around £13,000 which is the equivalent of about £1.5 million today.

Illustration depicting the bridge about 1799 from Fuller’s History of Berwick

Escape from Camp 18

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On the 1st April 1945 Austrian Prisoner of War Joseph Kirchdorfer, aged nineteen, and seven others escaped from Camp 18 at Featherstone Park, near Haltwhistle. The daring plot had been planned over months by the eight escapees, but would end swiftly in recapture and death.

Camp 18, Featherstone Park near Haltwhistle was opened in 1944 to house American soldiers arriving as part of the Normandy invasions and later became one of the largest POW camps in Britain, with two hundred huts over four compounds that could house up to four thousand officers and six hundred German orderlies. The camp held a broad range of prisoners from the German Army, Navy, U-boat Officers and Luftwaffe pilots, as well as diplomats and bureaucrats were represented amongst the camps growing population in the mid to late 1940s.

Camp 18 ran programmes of ‘denazification’ in the hope that when German POWs returned to Germany they would have been re-educated along democratic lines. POWs were often screened to assess their ideological sympathies. They were then placed into three groups: ‘white’ (anti-Nazi), ‘grey’ (in-between), and ‘black’ (hardline Nazi). ‘Black Nazis’ were often sent to Camp 18 for re-education. The ‘denazification’ programs at the camp were considered to be a huge success and towards the end of the 1940s prisoners were allowed to undertake work in the local community. Maureen Smith remembers German POWs being allowed to attend the village dance on a Saturday night. She recalls one man, ‘Peter, a German prisoner, [who] used to work on the fields near [their] allotment’ and if it was raining he would sit in their shed and eat his sandwiches. The POWs of Camp 18 also produced their own German newspaper ‘Die Zeit am Tyne’ that was printed on the presses of the the Hexham Courant. The Northumberland Archives hold original copies along with some transcriptions of issues one to six of the newspaper. Alongside the German newspaper and community work, prisoners in the Camp also held stage plays, radio broadcasts and football matches.

Joseph Kirchdorfer, a Luftwaffe pilot, was determined to escape Camp 18. In his memoirs he claims that the escape was born out of a youthful urge for action, rather than any sort of heroics. He had been arrested behind enemy lines in Holland in 1944. He was of special interest to his captors as he carried with him a letter from the world’s first female test pilot, Hanna Reitsch. Soon after arriving at Featherstone Park, Joseph became involved in a daring plot to escape the camp, hijack a plane and return to Germany. The young officer was well aware of the risks involved with an escape attempt; later writing in his memoirs that if the search light was switched on ‘you were a dead man’.

In the dead of night, using a thunderstorm for cover, Joseph and seven of his compatriots, dressed in make-shift outfits and using wire cutters fashioned out of a window latch, fled the camp. The men said their goodbyes at the fence and headed in their separate ways. Some of the men attempted to cross the South River Tyne that had become flooded in the thunderstorm. One POW, 24-year-old Karl Kropp, was last seen up to his neck in water, attempting to wade across the flooded river. His body was recovered by John Walton, who was out on a shooting trip, as the waters receded three days later. He was buried in the war graves section of Hexham cemetery, draped in a swastika flag and escorted by six German POWs who saluted as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Kropp’s body was disinterred and repatriated to Germany in 1958.   

Joseph and two other escapees in his group followed the South Tyne Railway to Alston. The group hid out in a guardsman’s hut during the day and continued their journey as darkness set. The three men travelled 12 miles in one day and made it into Cumbria. Their escape was ended by a local policeman, PC Wilson, who stopped the group and reported them to soldiers. PC Wilson also arrested four of the surviving POWs in Haldon’s Mill, outside of Alston.  Recaptured and returned to the Camp, Joseph was stripped naked and beaten by guards determined to locate the remaining escapees. After refusing to give up the names and locations of his fellow escapees, guards

Joseph and his fellow POWs escape attempt had ended in catastrophe. All at the men were recaptured and Karl Kropp paid for the attempt with his life.

Thank you to Derek Holcroft for suppling the colour images of a soggy Featherstone and also giving us the original idea for this story.

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 14 FEBRUARY 1919

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BERWICK ADVERTISER, 14 FEBRUARY 1919

PRESENTATION AT HOLY ISLAND

Returning from the war as well as going to it, is accompanied with changes; and Mr Hollingsworth’s welcome return to the island, after so nobly leaving school and family, three and a half years ago, to do his bit at the war, relives Mr Pearson, who has acted as temporary head master during his absence.

Three and a half years is a considerable time in the life of the school children; and while they had not forgotten their teacher at the war, and were proudly conscious of the heroism displayed in his absence from them, nevertheless they had also learned to love their present teacher; and to make friends of his wife and daughter; it was only natural they should wish in parting to show these feelings in the form of parting presents. We do not wonder at these feelings existing, for anyone who knows Mr Pearson readily come to perceive that, besides being an able teacher and a strict disciplinarian, he is remarkably fond of his scholars.


Children playing beside lobster pots at Holy Island, in the early 20th century.  © Northumberland Archives, NRO 683-13-33. 

On the afternoon of Friday last, the master being previously told to expect visitors, there duly appeared in the School, the Vicar, accompanied by a number of former scholars, and the ceremony of presentation proceeded. The Vicar gracefully presiding, the top boy, Master A. Crawshaw, with neat speech, expressed the kind wishes of the scholars for their teacher and his family, and in token of their good feeling asked the Master to accept of the following mementos. To the teacher himself, leather collar box and ebony-backed hair brushes; to Mrs Pearson, roll of music.

Mr Pearson, in returning kind knowledgements for himself and family testified the pleasure he had in receiving these gifts was the conviction that they were spontaneous and affectionate. Though leaving the Holy Isle he would never forget it, never forget the kindnesses he had received from all the people; and especially would never forget his beloved pupils. Thus ended the programme, according to plan; but the vociferous cheering, first for himself, then for his wife, and then for his daughter, which came neither from programme nor from plan, but from their heart, was perhaps the best part of a most pleasant meeting.

LOCAL NEWS

Congratulations to Gunner Robert Leach, 106th Siege Battery, R.G.A., husband of Mrs Leach, Bishop’s Entry, Berwick, who has been awarded the Military Medal for bravery in the Field in France. He joined up in June, 1917, and has been over 15 months on active service in France, and has had the good luck not to be wounded, though he has seen much heavy fighting.

The Military Medal, awarded to Gunner Robert leach from Berwick

Before enlisting he was Secretary to the Co-operative Society, Ltd., at Tweedmouth, and was also at one time in the office of the Borough Surveyor, Mr R. Dickinson. His younger brother has been in the army since out-break of war, but is now demobilised. They are the sons of Mr Leach, Main Street, Tweedmouth

It is expected that the new Sanatorium which the Northumberland County Council have decided to build at Wooler, will be ready for occupation in about twelve months. The total cost will be £55,804, and the building, which will be timber, lined and covered with asbestos when completed will house 500 patients. At present, however, it is only proposed to erect a building large enough to provide for 144 patients. When the question of building the new Sanatorium was discussed at the recent meeting of the Council, one member advocated “holding their hands,” as there were two excellent houses which would shortly come into market, and which would be suitable for a sanatoria. We understand that one of the houses referred to is on the banks of the Tweed, and not many miles from Berwick.

TWEEDMOUTH JOTTINGS

The brothers Private James Yourston, 1st K.O.S.B., and Private Andrew Yourston, N.F., have been home to Main Street, Tweedmouth, on leave together. Private James Yourston enlisted in the 7th N.F. in 1914, and went to France with the local Battalion. He was wounded shortly after his arrival on the Western front, and was out of action for a considerable time.


A British officer writing home from the Western Front during World War One
 © Copyright expired.  National Library of Scotland image: digital.nls.uk/74548100. 

He had the honour of being awarded the D.C.M. while in the first battles, and was presented with the same at a public gathering in some time, and is returning back to his unit, Berwick. He has been in the 1st K.O.S.B. for some time and is returning back to his unit, which is now in Germany. Private Andrew Yourston now demobilised joined the 7th N.F.’s early in the war, and went through much of the campaign with the 7th, being later transferred to the 14th N.F. He also has been wounded, but is now fully recovered from all the ill effects of the war in general. He is a baker to trade, and intends commencing with his old employers the Co-Operative Society, as soon as convenient.

DUDDO

Although the fighting was finished it was thought that as the boys could not be at home for Christmas they would be delighted to receive a present from home to show them that they were remembered. Accordingly subscriptions were asked for and a ready response was given. Owing to the food regulations, etc., the usual parcels could not be sent, but instead a gift of money, socks and cigarettes, or money alone to the value of 10s was sent to each man. The answers received from the men showed how much they appreciated the kind thoughts of those at home.

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