Berwick Castle

Listen for a moment. Somewhere behind you, a train brakes on the main line between London and Edinburgh. In front of you, broken walls of grey and honey-coloured stone fall away down a steep green slope towards the River Tweed. Gulls call over the water. The wind here has a salt edge, because the North Sea is only a short walk away. This is Berwick Castle. What is left of it is mostly ruin, and that ruin carries one of the strangest stories on the whole border.

Start with the position. Berwick sits at the mouth of the Tweed, the river that for much of its length marks the line between England and Scotland. Whoever held this rise above the river controlled a harbour, a crossing, and the road along the east coast. That made the town valuable. It also made it a target. For centuries, armies from both kingdoms came here first when they went to war, and the castle stood in the middle of it all.

The castle began as a Scottish fortress in the twelfth century, when Berwick was one of the richest trading towns in Scotland. Wool and hides went out through its harbour to the markets of Flanders, the region of the Low Countries famous for cloth. The early castle was probably built with earth and timber. Over time, it was rebuilt in stone and grew stronger, with towers, curtain walls, and a great hall at its heart.

That great hall is where the story turns. In 1292, the Scottish throne stood empty, and more than a dozen men claimed it. King Edward the First of England was asked to judge between them. The final hearing took place here, at Berwick. In the great hall, the crown was awarded to John Balliol. Scotland had a king again, but he was a king who owed his throne to an English judgment. That arrangement did not last.

Only four years later, in 1296, Edward came back to Berwick with an army. The town was taken by storm, and large numbers of its people were killed. Historians still treat it as one of the darkest days on the border. Afterwards, Edward rebuilt and strengthened the defences. Berwick never fully recovered its old place as a great Scottish port, and for the next two centuries it passed back and forth between the two crowns.

Here is a detail that many visitors miss. After Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scots in 1306, one of the women who took part in the ceremony was Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan. When the English captured her, Edward ordered her held in a cage at Berwick Castle. She was kept there for several years, in a structure built of timber and iron, in full view. It is a hard thing to imagine on a quiet afternoon in this spot.

The tug of war over Berwick went on through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Sieges, surrenders, treaties, and betrayals followed one another. People often say the town changed hands more than a dozen times. The last change came in 1482, when English forces took Berwick and kept it. Since then, it has remained in England, although many local voices, local names, and even the local football club still carry a Scottish flavour.

Now look at the long wall that runs straight down the slope towards the river. This is often called the White Wall. It was built to link the castle on the hilltop with the riverbank below, so that no enemy could slip along the water's edge and come up behind the defences. At the bottom stands a round tower by the river. Beside the wall runs a steep flight of steps known locally as the Breakneck Stairs. The name is a fair warning.

By the sixteenth century, the medieval castle was out of date. Cannon had changed warfare. Under Queen Elizabeth the First, Berwick was given a new ring of massive earth and stone ramparts, designed with angled bastions to resist artillery. You can still walk on those town walls today. The old castle, outside this new circuit, lost its purpose. Its stone became a quarry, and over the following centuries much of it was carried away and reused in other buildings.

The final blow came with the railway. In the nineteenth century, engineers needed a site for Berwick's station, and the old castle hill was the obvious place. Much of what remained was cleared away. The station you have just walked through, or soon will, stands roughly where the great hall once stood. Inside, a plaque marks the connection. So the room where a Scottish king was chosen now lies under platforms, ticket barriers, and the smell of coffee.

There is another surprise close by. Turn towards the river and look upstream. The long line of tall stone arches crossing the Tweed is the Royal Border Bridge. It was designed by the engineer Robert Stephenson and opened by Queen Victoria in 1850. It carries the main line high above the water. The same railway that destroyed most of the castle also gave Berwick one of the finest viaducts in Britain. The town gained a bridge and lost a fortress in almost the same years.

As you explore the ruins, notice the materials. The walls are rough rubble, bound with mortar, with larger dressed stones at the corners and openings. In places you can see where facing stones have been prised off, leaving the rough core exposed. Moss and small plants grow in the joints. The riverside path below is quiet, with trees, birdsong, and the slow brown water of the Tweed. Swans often gather near the bridges, and the tide reaches up the river from the sea.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment near the top of the slope. Behind you is the modern town, its station, and its trains heading north and south. Below you is a river that once divided kingdoms. These few walls are all that remain of a place where crowns were decided and lives were broken. As you walk away, listen again for the next train on the bridge. The border is still here. It is just quieter now.