BERWICK JOURNAL, 31ST JULY 1924

by

NORHAM CASTLE HISTORY

At the annual summer outing of the Melrose Literary Society to Norham, the following paper on the position of Norham Castle in history and romance prepared by Mr J. E. Fairbairn was read in his absence by Mrs Drummond:-

The habit of this Society in selecting for its annual outing some place famous in literary annals has on this occasion again been amply justified and maintained, for today we meet mot only on the scene of one of the greatest and most stirring poems in the whole range of English literature, but on the banks of that river which had been such a fruitful source of inspiration for many a poet’s fancy. Throughout his life there was no river which appealed to Scott like the ever dear Tweed: he knew it in every aspect, it was his joy to ride its  most dangerous fords, to light its dark waters at night with the flame of the salmon lusterer, or to dream beneath a tree above its flowing waters, and on that memorable afternoon to the music of its ripple he fell asleep. It was only natural therefore that he should have selected the castled steep of Norham, flanked by the fine sweep of the river as the scene of his fresh and galloping poem of Marmion. Did it ever occur to you how I each of his three best known poems Scott weaves his story round some hoary castle on a romantic river bank. In “The Day” it is Newark and Yarrow, in “Marmion” Norham and Tweed, and in the “Lady of the Lake” the final scene occurs in Stirling on the Forth. Most of “Marmion” was composed on horseback, and the cantos ring with the sound of hoof and the jingling of bridle and spur. The preparation for the writing of “Marmion” began with his childhood’s years round the old tower of Smailholm when the love of martial tales was so early implanted in his breast and never ceased to grow until it reached its full maturity. While Scott found the inspiration of the poem in the old story of the feuds between the two Kingdoms with all its accompanying throng of gallant knights and ladies fair, he wove into the still older tale of love between man and maid, and it contains also a fine outburst of enthusiasm for his native city of Dunedin.

Norham Castle on the Tweed. Ref: BRO 515/178

Norham, as you can see, has been something more than an ordinary Border peel tower, and in the height of its glory must have been a place of great dimensions. With its double moat and strong fortifications, it looks as if it would be almost impregnable against attack, while its high and massive walls, even in their decay, are grim and forbidding and suggest defiance to all. This great fortress, set down as it were to over awe a Kingdom, was begun by Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, in 1121, and was completed about 1170 under the succeeding Bishop, Hugh Pudsey, reminding us that in these early days the ecclesiastics, while members of the Church militant, took part also in another form of warfare. Its purpose was to ward off the turbulent and aggressive Scot of the North and was the great Border fortress in charge of the warlike Bishop of Durham. The river in broad volume washes on two sides of the high rock on which it stood in all its grandeur. Within the inner wall stood the massive square keep or donjon of Flambard Pudsey’s days, originally 95 feet in height, and still as a ruin not much less. Norham was the last point to the north of the province of Northumberland, and it eyed the opposite heights of Ladykirk and the Scottish Border with perfectly equipped defiance, and commands even today a view of the distant Lammermuirs to the north, and the triple peaks of the Eildons to the west. Round it cluster important movements in English and Scottish history from the time of King John to James IV. At the head of the island in the river is the ford where James was nearly carried away, and where he made the vow that issued in the building of Ladykirk. The importance of Norham ceased with the union of the Crowns in 1603, when its last Governor, Sir Robert Cary, rode from London to Holyrood in two days to hail James VI.  as Monarch of two Kingdoms. It still frowns across the Merse and carries us in thought back to the days of chivalry when the holding of its great sandstone keep was a gage of knightly honour.

Norham Castle, Harvest Time. Ref: BRO 515/179

Though day set long ago on the living glory of its castled steep the fame of the deeds done there in ancient days is not likely to be forgotten. Its walls still ooze history, and thanks to the genius of a master hand it rises again in all its ancient glory so that its denizens of former times become to us a living presence. Looking on its broken battlements as they yellow in the western blaze we are seeing it in that same golden glory under which Marmion sought its walls. In our mind’s eye we can still see that errant knight in all his panoply and pride come riding o’er the hill. We can still hear the steady tread of the warder on the turret high, and across the calm air of the evening there comes to us a snatch of that ancient Border gathering song. The form of the witching lady Ford still flits across the scene, bearing heavy on her soul the fate of Flodden Field, and with the wail for the Flowers o’ the Forest causing unrest to her spirit. The doughty King James, directing the destinies of battle looms large on Piper’s Hill, and under burden of a mental and more grievous weight than his ponderous iron belt. It is a far cry from Norham to the Scottish capital, but there still comes to us the news of battle ringing down its cobbled streets, and we see the haggard form of Randolph on his weary steed, the sole survivor of that mighty host which but a week before had gathered on the Burgh muir. It is pictures like these and many others that the once proud but now dismantled towers of Norham suggest and conjure up before us. The waters which wash its walls have flowed through a hundred scenes famous in history, renowned in romance, and garlanded with song, past many a roofless Border peel, and before the river loses itself in the bosom of the eternal sea it lingers for a while round this the last of the landmarks on her hundred miles of water way. Norham carries us back to the days of chivalry, and few castles of that period display more of their strength than this stronghold not only so, but that quality also shone, though in a fitful and a fading gleam across the ridge of Flodden.

Norham Castle, Evening. Ref: BRO 515/181

The massive ruin still keeps ward upon the Border side, and Castle and Church and village alike are full of reminiscences of history and romance. Hither in 1318 there came from Lincoln an actual Sir Wm. Marmion, helmed with gold, it is said, under pledge to win his lady love by defending Norham for a year and day. Alas, h however, for the gallant, for the Scots Borderers proved too warlike for him, and he lost his gage, his lady and his life in a single ambuscade. Here in May, 1291, Edward I met the Wardens of Scotland to arrange the succession to the Scottish crown, and thus sowed the seeds of the dire wars of Succession in the northern Kingdom. And it was on the green meadows opposite that in June of the same year the great nobles of Scotland, took upon the gospels, the oath of allegiance to the English King. But these and other actual historical events sink into comparative insignificance with the romantic episodes associated with Norham. In the Abbotsford gallery of fame the haughty crest of Marmion and the abiding love of Clare occupy honoured and important niches, and it is round them that there has been woven that story of glamour and romance which will enshroud the castled steep of Norham until the last day has set upon its battlements and towers.

Transport to Local Hospitals for Pregnant Women

by
NRO 11491/1/1/4/1

This blog has been researched and written by Dee Love, one of the volunteers on our maternity care project. Project volunteers are researching maternity care in Northumberland with particular focus on Castle Hills Maternity Home, Berwick, and Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. The blog is based on wider research exploring maternity provision in Northumberland.

Before the establishment of the NHS in 1948 the majority of women gave birth at home but on occasions complications would arise and they would need to be taken to hospital. Women in Ashington and the surrounding district often had to travel to Mona Taylor in Stannington, to Beulah House in Blyth or to The Princess Mary Unit in Newcastle. There were rail links from Newbiggin and Ashington to Blyth and Stannington but it would have been a long, uncomfortable journey for pregnant women. Few families owned cars at that time.

The ambulance service as we know it began in 1948 and when the Government decided that the service should be free to all patients in need. The 1946 NHS Act required the Local Authorities to provide an ambulance service where necessary. To begin with it was staffed by volunteers and professionals were gradually introduced. Eventually the service became a discrete part of the NHS.

Prior to 1948 patients paid for ambulance transport. It is documented that pregnant women in and around Ashington were paying £3 for an ambulance to take them to the Princess Mary Hospital in Newcastle. In the meantime, the Medical Officer for Health’s Annual report for 1926 on The Urban District of Amble states that the only ambulance provision in the town was the colliery ambulance from Broomhill Colliery three miles away. 

Newbiggin, Pegswood and North Seaton Collieries also provided an ambulance service paid for by miners’ subscriptions to the Miners’ Welfare Fund. The service was free to subscribers and non-subscribers paid a fee. I found no mention of how much that fee was.

The 999 number to summon an ambulance was introduced in 1937. At that time there would have been very few telephones in people’s homes. The first public phone boxes were introduced in the United Kingdom in 1921. It is most likely that in the early days of the ambulance service that G.Ps organized ambulances when necessary.

The M.O.H. Annual Accounts for Ashington in 1949 record that the County Council provided five Ambulances and nine drivers who worked shifts to provide a 24 hour service and in 1950 the County Council provided an ambulance service for Newbiggin.

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 3RD JULY 1924

by

BORDER MARRIAGE HOUSE

THREATENED WITH DEMOLITION

The celebrated Border Marriage House at Lamberton, on the Great North Road, between Ayton and Berwick, was under discussion at the east District Committee meeting at Ayton on Thursday last. This historic relic passed some time ago into the hands of the Scottish Board of Agriculture when they acquired Lamberton for the purpose of a small holding settlement. It was then in rather poor repair and more recently, at the instance as is understood of the occupants, it was condemned by the Medical Officer of Health for Berwickshire as unfit for human habitation. Correspondence between the East District Committee and the Board of Agriculture followed, and the subject of what was to be done engaged the attention of the Committee on more than one occasion. The position taken up by the Board practically amounted to this: they had no use for the house in connection with their scheme and could not or would not see their way to expend anything upon its repair for letting purposes. In the long run they virtually asked the Committee to issue a closing order and put an end to the matter.  On Thursday this came before the Committee in the usual course.

Lamberton Toll Postcard. Ref: BRO 1550/52

Mr Coupland, Sanitary Inspector for the County, on being asked his opinion, said he considered it would be rather a pity to issue a closing order in this case and that it would have been preferable if means could be employed to compel the proprietors to put it into order. The Chairman asked if they were obliged to issue this closing order, to which Mr Coupland replied that it was unfortunate that the Committee had not taken action under Section 25 of the Housing and Town Planning Act (Scotland) 1919 and issued an order to the proprietors to have it put into order. If they failed to do so, the Committee could then proceed to execute the necessary repairs and charge the proprietors with the cost. This statement appeared to cast a new light upon the matter and Mr Usher remarked that he did not see that the Board of Agriculture should be allowed to neglect its duties any more than a private individual. It was also pointed out that a closing order, if carried out, involved demolition, and also threw upon the Committee the onus of providing alternative accommodation. The question arose as to whether the Committee could rescind its former minute on the subject, out of which the present proceedings arose. The Joint Clerk (Mr T. P. Doughty) gave it as his opinion that the Committee could not there and then do so, but he was under the impression that this could be done at next meeting, by there being put on the agenda in a regular way a notice to rescind the minute in question. The Board had said they were not prepared to carry out the repairs required to make the house habitable, and on June 23rd, 1923, the Committee practically resolved that a closing order would be granted. The Chairman (Mr K. G. Turnbull) said the Clerks might look into the matter and see if it was practicable to proceed under Sec.25, and thee matter could be taken up fresh at next meeting.

Dr McWhan said he had formerly represented the house as uninhabitable, and he was of the same opinion still. He did not think it was necessary to take any action until certain circumstances changed.

Mr Campbell Renton – if any accident happens, whose is the liability?

This set the discussion o another task. Mr Anderson stated that the gable had sagged away 1 ½ feet from the roof, and Mr Doughty in allusion to the legal aspect of the matter said he did not think it was ever contemplated when the Act was passed that an owner could come to an Authority and ask for a closing order. Dr McWhan said there was for too much tinkering with old property. The place would have to be practically rebuilt. Mr Coupland said that as matters stood they would have to find the occupants a house.

The Chairman – But we can’t find them a house.

Mr Campbell-Renton – I understand they are simply “squatters.” They are paying no rent.

Mr Hogarth protested against taking down an old landmark if it could be helped and was supported by one or two members. Eventually Mr bell moved that a closing order be issued and was seconded by Mr Russell. Mr Hogarth moved that the Committee do not issue a closing order, and was seconded by Mr Patterson, Chirnside, who said that in view of the admitted scarcity of houses in the district the Committee should not do anything to lessen their number unless they had no other course.

Mr Anderson – Closing the house does not mean demolition?

Mr Coupland – Yes it does.

Mr Usher moved that the matter be continued until next meeting and that in the meantime the Clerks should look into the question of the practicability of another line of procedure. This was seconded by Mr Cockburn and the other motions being withdrawn, became the finding of the meeting.

MARRIAGES AT LAMBERTON

Lamberton got its name – like many other places in the Southern shires of Scotland – from an early Saxon settler, Lambert, whose “tun” it became (says “Weekly Scotsman”). He must have squatted here early, before the reign of David I, as in the charter which that king gave to Berwick one of the witnesses is William de Lambertourn.

Sheldon Historical Sketches, 1849

“On each side of the road,” says Sheldon in his Historical Sketches (1849), “stand two old houses in which the Hymeneal knot id tied a la Gretna. Here comes many a bachelor and spinster, and to avoid the expense and delay of a church marriage are instantly buckled together by the priest of the Castle gate, who for a crown piece and a gill of whisky ties many couples fast…… Half a mile to the north of the dry dyke once stood the ancient church and village of Lamberton.”

Lamberton Toll weddings are very interesting, as the show, perhaps better than any, how popular and extended were Border marriages at a certain period. From distant towns and scattered villages from isolated hamlets and farms, a wonderfully large number of young couples made Lamberton the Mecca of their desires, a Mecca only to be reached after a long and weary journey over roads none too well kept in those days.

One marriage certificate I have shows the parties lived in the borough of Tynemouth; another, South Shields; and one came from the little cluster of houses – Rochester-on Watling Street. This latter pair had to walk miles to the south before going east through Rothbury to reach Longframlington, where they turned left-handed to get on the Great North Road – even then they were 60 miles from the Borders. These are only a few of the several cases which could be brought forward to prove that distance was no object to the old-time lovers.

Some would no doubt get a kindly lift, others would go by the stagecoach, or other cheaper stage waggon. The majority went there is little doubt, on “Shanks, his pony.” The principal reason for this pilgrimage seems to have been that a deeply-rooted objection to marriage in a church prevailed in the northern part of England by night.

An amusing story is told of a pair who arrived at the house with the priest before a fire had been lighted in the “parlour.” A match was hastily put to the “coal fire,” but the chimney being cold and damp, refused to draw, and belched out volumes of smoke into the room, until it was like to choke them all. The bridegroom being touched in the wind, bore it worst of all. He became so distressed with the smoke and the slowness of the priest that he shouted. “Hoots, man: that’ll de. How much de ye want?” and, after throwing down the fee, he seized his bride and rushed for the open air -half-married.

Lamberton Toll Marriage Certificate, dated 1846. REF: BRO 1766/1

Like most of the other places where Border marriages were celebrated, Lamberton provided cases for the Courts of Law. Some were of bigamy, largely through ignorance. How an obliging disposition, when it runs counter to the laws, may end in disaster, was demonstrated in a case which came before Mr Justice Cresswell at Durham, when Jospeh Atkinson pleaded guilty to having married William Brown and Catherine Cossar at Berwick-on-Tweed. The couple had made their way to Lamberton, but on arrival found that Atkinson had gone to Berwick. They followed and ran him to ground in the Old Hen and Chickens in bridge Street. At first, he refused to tie the know unless they returned with him to Lamberton, but they declared that their relations were possibly following, and further pressed argument and drink on him until, when the night was far spent, he complied. On returning home he entered the transaction as having been performed at Lamberton. At his trial all his pleadings were of no avail, and he was sentenced to transportation for seven years.

According to an informant, most of the priests were either tailors or shoemakers living in Berwick. An old weaver told me of a wedding at which after a supper and a taste of the tollman’s whisky – which seems to have figured largely both before and after the ceremony-the newly-wedded couple were rolling merrily away in their carriage when the candles in the lamps set fire to the woodwork. “it was a bonny hullabaloo,” in his words, “on fire and no water anywhere near.”

The Lamberton Toll marriage certificates possess are in several forms. Some, neatly printed, have been taken from a book with counterfoils. Others have been given an important legal look by the heading “This is to certify,” or “Whereas this witness,” in highly decorative penmanship. Others again are on any odd piece of paper which might be at hand. Still, they served their purpose as well as if they had been signed by a bishop or an archdeacon and were quite as much thought of years ago as any very special license is today.

They were perfectly good legal evidence, and were accepted as such in the law Courts, and as evidence of presumptive age, I know of at least one case where a Lamberton Toll marriage certificate secured the old pension for a man who could not produce a certificate of his birth and who did not know where he had been born.

As a regiment of soldiers was stationed at Berwick, to say nothing of the militia, Lamberton came in for a handsome share of their marriage fees. So did the Berwick Magistrates. These extracts from the Register of Marriages at Berwick in the 17th century show the mayor or a Magistrates officiated.

“Thomas Houghes, Captain under the command of Colonel George Fenwick, in the Garrison at Leath, in Scotland, and Grace, daughter of Mr John Saltonstall, late Alderman of Berwick, before Stephen Jackson, Miar for this year.”

The entries generally are “quaint” as regards spelling, and it is very noticeable that a very large number of officers and men took away wives as souvenirs of their stay in the Border town which is neither English or Scottish.

In the last week of the last year when toll marriages were valid the local press contained a paragraph indicative of the rush to be in at the finish.

“There were, we are informed, no fewer than 13 marriages celebrated on Sunday week, and 8 on last Sunday, while we have no doubt that a large number are still pending to be completed before the departure of the present year.”

The priests actually did a roaring trade up to the last legal day, and numerous announcements appeared in the first numbers of the local “weeklies” of the next year.

+ More