Belford Local History Society

Our July meeting took the form of a walk round Tweedmouth, guided by the County Archaeologist, Chris Burgess, and Alison Cowe of the Civic Society. Although the evening looked unpromising, the rain more or less held off until the end of the walk, and twenty of us were shown parts of Tweedmouth we’d never seen before, and learned much more of its history.

We began by the Old Bridge, where we were fortunate to see some of the last of the Salmon fishers working from one of the Batts or artificial islands in the river, noted the extra thick pier on the bridge, which marked the boundary between Berwick and Tweedmouth, and the splendid Georgian House, which was once an important inn, housing a variety of notables, including authors Tobias Smollet and Daniel Defoe.

From there we walked through the West End, past the formerly thatched pub, the fortress like Jehovah’s Witness Citadel, previously a Presbyterian church and up to the site of the Foundry, reputed, we were told, to have cast all the lamp standards for Delhi. We returned to the river bank beside the Royal Border Bridge, amazing to think that the piles for the bridge go as deep as the Bridge rises high.

Walking along the bank, Chris explained to a somewhat sceptical audience, why he thought the modern Royal Tweed Bridge was the best of the bridges, though we did appreciate the skilful way in which it had filled in a step height between the Old Bridge and the railway’s Royal Border Bridge. We then turned inland again, to take the Yard Heads, now a lane, but originally a significant road which had run along the back of Tweedmouth, separating the settlement from the fields beyond.

This explained why some houses seemed to modern eyes to have been built back to front, facing on to a now partly neglected path. The Yard Heads also gave good views of the backs of buildings, providing interesting insights into their considerable age. From the Yard Heads, passing the former brewery we arrived at the Church, dedicated to St. Bartholomew and St. Boisil, the latter being one of Cuthbert’s mentors. There we were shown a mediaeval knight’s grave in the churchyard. We ended our walk on the green beside the Northumbrian Water Works, built on the site of St. Cuthbert’s Well. These days Northumbrian Water sells its water back to us, but in times past, the people of Tweedmouth used wooden pipes to send this water under the river to the people of Berwick.