Bridges - gates - they now built a wall from one sea to the other
A weekend of protests on several continents; a weekend designated for making marmalade, a quintessentially British preserve with a Portuguese name made from Spanish oranges and Caribbean sugar. I went into town to buy more oranges, and on autopilot got into the wrong lane and had to drive round the one-way system to get to the supermarket. I realised an exhibition at Tullie House that I kept meaning to see was due to end in a few days, so I went to look at a painting of Carlisle's Eden bridges*.
The painting is one of two from around 1800 and shows the city from Rickerby Park below Stanwix fort on the Roman border wall with the two Eden bridges in the foreground and the mountains behind. Leaving aside the river, I'm struck, oddly, by the similarity to Marrakech - another red walled medieval city with snowy mountains behind and places of worship rising above the houses.
The bridges brought traffic from Scotland to the former Sands island where the cattle marts were held - and customs duties paid (or not, if the drovers avoided the city) - and off the Sands island past the pinfold to Scotchgate. The city still has Scotchgate and Englishgate, but until today I didn't know there was an Irishgate too. I go through it every day. The actual gate was demolished in 1811 and its name lost in the building of the semi-ring road in the 1970s - although it was reincarnated in the unloved "millennium bridge", officially the Irishgate Bridge.
All three gates are double-named: English Gate is Botchergate (the road to Botcherby); Scotchgate is Rickergate (the road to Rickerby, Richard's farmstead); Irishgate is Caldewgate (the road over the river Caldew). There was no Danegate: the stone walls came after the norsemen had stopped being a threat, or had assimilated.
And after the bridges I looked at the exhibits about the shifting border, the reivers, and the original border wall.
They now built a wall across the island from one sea to the other, which being manned with a proper force, might be a terror to the foes which it was intended to repel, and a protection to their friends whom it covered...
After the Romans left and before the Normans arrived, we were one realm in these middlelands. The wall wasn't needed. When the Normans arrived, the North was harried, and emptied. The wall had a role to play again and the city walls were rebuilt in stone and frequently repaired. The Scots and the English were different folks, and fought. And the Irish, with their gate?
One day I shall walk these walls.
Nowadays we know the border is permeable; we know people who live in one country and work in the other; we know people who currently live and work in England but are thinking of moving to live in Scotland because it's more politically pleasant to them, or because their child's higher education will be more affordable, or for the chance to vote in the second referendum when it comes.
I look north for the views; my neighbours drive north for their holidays where the mountains are higher, the wilderness is greater and the eagles still fly. I look north as well as south to understand the history of the land I stand on; I get the travel news from Scotland as well as Cumbria, but my TV news comes from Newcastle and doesn't cover the whole of Cumbria, let alone the country five miles away as the curlew flies. Professionally we look south: Scotland is creating distinctiveness in its institutions and its public services compared to England, and somehow though the border on the ground is diminished, the border in the mind is strengthening. And as a result, sometime in the not too distant future, the border on the ground may return.
This year's marmalade is a whisky one, with more whisky than most recipes. Made in England, with Scotch. Before we had customs union in 1707, we had smuggling across this border. Whisky as well as cattle.
*Three days after I published this, Sir Ian McKellen on Who Do You Think You Are found that the artist James Lowes was his ancestor, and visited Tullie House to look at some of his engravings.
Read: Peter Roebuck, Cattle Droving through Cumbria 1600-1900, Bookcase 2015;
Rory Stewart, The Marches, Jonathan Cape 2016
Showing posts with label borderlands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label borderlands. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 January 2017
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Rainbows over the border
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.
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.
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