Driving through the debateable lands - porous and permeable borders - reivers, smugglers, drovers
Early autumn, sunshine and morning mist, driving through the shifted border lands to see the lie of the land. Eastwards with Hadrian’s Wall, the border of AD 122; northwest to Jedburgh and Hawick and southwest along the 1237 Solway-Tweed border through Liddesdale.
This is the first time in four months that I’ve ventured over the border, although I see the other side every day. I’ve thought about it a few times: to see the Tour of Britain arrive into Castle Douglas; to look for my Scottish ancestors in Fairlie; to see the firth from the other side. I've thought about the border more - the referendum outcome and its aftermath, only two weeks after my relocation forced that - in a few years I could, in the ideas of some, be living within a few miles of the frontier of the European Union, as well as on the frontier of the roman empire.
Sunny Cumbria gives way to misty, cloudy, mizzly Northumbria, Steel Rigg’s panorama magnificent with rolling cloud behind the ridges. A factory chimney makes a dark cloud superimposed on nature’s lighter ones. At the first crossing of the Tyne, a fisherman casting in the middle of the river; by the city crossing a group of canoeists. A few days later on the radio, I heard
the Tyne is now the best salmon river in England and Wales.
Having filled the car with flatpacks, I head north towards the now-distant border. The North Pennines through Redesdale to the Cheviots are rolling, lumpier and less bleak than Shap or Orton fells, but just as empty-looking, distinguished by firing ranges and grouse moors, and the site of the battle of Otterburn in 1388. As a child we knew about the permeability of the border and the ability of the border reivers to traverse it to raid livestock. But I'm not sure how much of the context we understood and I've been trying to sort that out whilst thinking about this border and other borders.
Edward I's invasions into Scotland from 1296 marked the start of 300 years of conflict in a significantly militarised zone that continued until the union of the crowns. The invasions and the allegiances of the landlords on either side of the established border left local populations well-armed and happy to plunder from their farther neighbours, without pissing in their own backyards. We understand that to mean raiding across the border, but they probably also raided other families on their own side, but less frequently - it was easier to evade punishment under another country's law than your own, even if the law of the Marches was set out to deal with cross-border crime. Some raids were economic, stealing cattle for food during the autumn raiding weeks after the summer grazing was done; some raids were tribal blood feuds; some raids were political acts.
But the porous border allowed people to cross easily for ordinary business as they do in most of the world - taking goods to sell at markets, for pilgrimage or education. Even in borders with checkpoints, local people routinely cross each day to carry out their normal business. The 300 years had periods of heightened Troubles and periods of calm, and the militarisation ebbed and flowed along with England's inclination to fight with France.
If this land was the intra-Irish border in the time of the Troubles, most of the 23 road crossings would be closed, with crossings at perhaps only the three major roads. But the big empty spaces in the middle and west Marches could still be crossed by those who knew the lie of the land, who knew the mosses and the hills and how to ride them, just as they were 500 years ago.
Across the Solway, smugglers brought goods into Scotland, an economic act driven by the differences in customs regimes between the countries. The sea border harder than the land border, but less bloody. The union of the crowns led rapidly to the end of reiving, with the vigorous removal of some of the notorious reivers and gentrification of others. Instead, the cross-border droving trade grew (along with smuggling, until the union of the parliaments), especially in the west Marches, for the next 300 years, until superseded by the railways.
The border is marked by a viewpoint, a chance to look down on Scotland. Car parks with a burger van and a huddle of bikers. Ten miles on, at the sudden and unexpectedly striking Jedburgh Abbey - saved for a future visit - I head west and then southwest via Hawick towards Liddesdale. A leaflet from the last century tells the bloody stories of the Liddesdale Armstrongs and gives me some idea of where to go to return to the great border city. Liddesdale is deserted - I pass only two other vehicles on a single track road with very many passing places. Looks like a great place to wander and lose oneself, and perhaps to wild camp - note for future reference. Empty and probably quite bleak in winter but very appealing today.
Suddenly a railway engine - this must be the heritage part of the Waverley line. The line has been restored from Edinburgh to somewhere north of Hawick, re-opening last year, but it's not clear whether it's likely to come back down here.
Crossing into Dumfries, a sign for a Carlisle estate agent - knowing that the purchase process is different in the two countries, I hadn't expected that, but maybe for the estate agent the difference isn't so great - just operating a closing date and working with the buyer's solicitor more than with the buyer? I hadn't thought of Carlisle being the urban population centre in the western borderlands south and north - I expected the border to be harder than it maybe is. But I could easily enough live here and travel to Carlisle to work, crossing the border daily (and be able to vote in any second referendum). When I got to Newcastleton, running out of fuel, I wondered which country the nearest petrol station was in, and where Newcastleton looked for its big town, supermarkets and estate agents - to Hawick or to Carlisle? Detoured towards Gretna on the offchance of fuel, thinking still of the power of the border and the differences in legal systems, the reason the English know of Gretna.
Crossing back into Cumbria, to the east a rainbow with one foot in each country; later, turning south of the firth, a half rainbow rooted in Eskmouth.
