BERWICK-upon-TWEED, a port and borough and market-town,
situated between
the boundary line of the
northern part of the county
of Durham, and that of Scotland,
64 miles (N. by W.)
from Newcastle upon Tyne,
and 334 (N. by W.) from
London, containing 8723 inhabitants.
The name, which
Leland supposes to havebeen
originally Aberwick, from the
British terms Aber, the mouth of a river, and wic, a town,
is, by Camden and other antiquaries, considered to imply
only a hamlet annexed to a place of greater importance,
such appendages being usually, in ancient records, styled
berewics; and in this sense of the term Berwick is supposed
to have obtained its name from having been the
grange of the priory of Coldingham, ten miles distant.
It is said to have been a place of considerable importance
as a barrier town, in the reign of Osbert, King of
Northumbria, and, according to Boe'thius, was the place
where the Danes, under the conduct of Hubba, landed,
on their invasion of England, in the year 867. The town
having come into the possession of the Saxons, they,
on the defeat of their king, abandoned it, when, with
that part of the kingdom of Northumberland called Bernicia,
it was ceded, or sold, by Eadulf-Cudel, Earl of
Northumberland, to Malcolm II.., King of Scotland, in
1020. The earliest authentic notice of Berwick occurs
in the reign of Henry I.; and in that of Henry II., it
was, with four other towns, given up to that monarch
by William the Lion, in 1176, as a pledge for the performance
of the treaty of Falaise, by which, in order to
obtain his release from captivity, after the battle of Alnwick,
in 1174, he had engaged to do homage to the English
monarch, as lord paramount, for all his Scottish
dominions. Richard I., to obtain a supply of money
for his expedition to the Holy Land, sold the vassalage
of Scotland for ten thousand marks, and restored this
and the other towns to William, content with receiving
homage only for the territories which that prince held
in England. King John, on retiring from an unsuccessful
invasion of Scotland, burnt Berwick, which the
Scots almost immediately rebuilt on an enlarged plan,
and strongly fortified. In 1291, the commissioners appointed
to examine and report on the validity of the
title of the respective claimants to the crown of Scotland,
met at Berwick, and pursued there the investigation
which led to the decision in favour of John Balliol.
Edward I. having compelled Balliol to resign his crown,
took the town by storm, and inflicted dreadful carnage
on the occasion. In 1296, he received the homage of
the Scottish nobility, in the presence of a council of
the whole nation, at Berwick, where, in the following
year, he established a court of Exchequer for the receipt
of the revenue of the kingdom of Scotland. Wallace
having laid siege to the town, took possession
of it, but was unsvtccessful in his attempt on the castle,
which was relieved by the arrival of a numerous
army. Edward II., in prosecuting the war against
Scotland, assembled his army here repeatedly, and made
several inroads into the enemy's territory. Robert
Bruce obtained possession of it in 1318, and having
raised the walls, and strengthened them with towers, kept
it, notwithstanding several attacks from Edward II. and
Edward III., until it surrendered to the latter, after the
celebrated battle of Hallidown Hill, in this neighbourhood,
which took place on the 19th of July, 1333. As
a frontier town it was invariably the first object of attack,
on the renewal of hostilities between the two
kingdoms, and, after repeated surrenders and sieges, it
was ceded to Edward IV., from whom and his successors
it received several charters and extensive privileges.
After having been exposed, during the subsequent reigns,
to the continued aggressions of the Scots and the English,
it was made a free town, independent of both
kingdoms, by treaty between Edward VI., King of England,
and Mary, Queen of Scots, signed at Greenwich,
on the part of the former, on the 10th of May, and, on
the part of the latter, at Norham, in the vicinity of this
town, on the 10th of June, 1551. It was strongly fortified
in the reign of Elizabeth, who placed a garrison
in it, which was kept up till the accession of James to
the English throne, when its importance as a frontier
town ceased. During the civil war in the reign of
Charles I. it was garrisoned by the parliament.
The town is pleasantly situated on the northern
bank, and near the mouth, of the river Tweed: the approach
from the English side is over a handsome stone
bridge of fifteen arches, connecting it with Tweedmouth
on the south. The streets, with the exception of the
High street and Hidehill, are narrow, but well paved,
and lighted with gas, and the houses are in general well
built: some of the inhabitants are supplied with water
brought into their houses by pipes, from a spring at the
distance of a mile and a half; the others are supplied
from public cisterns placed in situations convenient for
the purpose. The new fortifications, which are exceedingly
strong, have displaced those of more ancient date,
of which there remain only the ruins of the fortress at
the south-west angle of the old town walls, and those
near the castle. The ramparts afford an agreeable promenade,
much frequented by the inhabitants. The barracks
for the garrison, on the north-east side of the
town, form a small quadrangle, neatly built of stone; the
establishment consists of a governor, lieutenant-governor,
town-major, town-adjutant, surgeon, master gunner,
and a few invalid gunners: the buildings are capable of
accommodating seven hundred men. Connected with
the barracks are the guard-house, an hospital, and an
ordnance house. A public library was established in
1812. The theatre, a small neat building, is opened
annually in summer. The assembly-rooms are opened
on public occasions; and subscription balls take place
regularly during the winter.
The trade of the port is somewhat extensive coastwise;
the exports are corn, wool, salmon, herrings,
pork, and eggs; the imports are timber, deals, staves,
iron, hemp, tallow, and blubber. The. number of vessels
belonging to the port, according to the return made to
parliament in 1828, was fifty-ftmr, averaging ninety tons'
burden: the harbour is good, but, from the bar at the
entrance, it is inaccessible to ships of large burden.
The pier, which has been recently constructed, extends
nearly half a mile in length; a lighthouse has been
erected on it, to guard mariners against the rocks
and shallows by which the navigation is endangered.
About eight hundred men are employed in the fishery:
the salmon and trout, which are caught in abun*
dance, are packed in boxes stratified with ice, by which
they are conveyed fresh to the London and other markets:
a great quantity of lobsters and herrings is also
found here. The annual rental of the fisheries has been
estimated at £10,000, and the supply of eggs, which
are sent from this place for the use of sugar refiners,
has been returned as exceeding the value of & 13,000
per annum, but this branch of the trade has materially
diminished. The principal articles of manufacture, exclusively
of such as are connected with the shipping,
are damask, diaper, sacking, sail-cloth, cotton, hosiery,
carpets, hats, boots, and shoes. The market, which is
abundantly supplied with grain, is on Saturday; and
there is a fair, for black cattle and horses, on the Friday
in Trinity week; statute fairs are also held on the second
Wednesday in May, the Wednesday before August
26th, and the first Wednesday in November.
The government, by charter of incorporation granted
in the reign of James I., is vested in a mayor, recorder,
four bailiffs, and an indefinite number of burgesses^
assisted by a town clerk, coroner, four Serjeants -at
mace, and subordinate officers. The mayor, who, with
the bailiffs, is elected annually at Michaelmas, the recorder,
and such of the burgesses as have filled the oifice
of mayor, are justices of the peace by virtue of their
office: the freedom of the borough is inherited by birth,
acquired by servitude, or obtained by gift. The corporation
hold courts of quarter session and gaol delivery
for the borough, and a court of pleas every alternate
Tuesday, for the recovery of debts to any amount. A
court leet is held under the charter, at which a high
constable and six petty constables are appointed. The
town hall is a spacious, handsome building, with a portico
of four massive circular columns of the Tuscan order:
a portion of the lower part, called the Exchange, is appropriated
to the use of the market; the first story
contains two spacious halls, and other apartments in
which the courts are held, and the public business of the
corporation is transacted; and the upper part is used as
a gaol: the whole forms a stately pile of fine hewn stone,
and is surmounted with a lofty spire containing a peal
of eight bells, which on the Sabbath day summon the
inhabitants to the parish church, but is inconveniently
situated in the centre of the High-street, by which the
thoroughfare is greatly obstructed. Berwick was one
of the four Scottish burghs which anciently sent representatives
to the court of the four burghs in Scotland;
on being annexed to the kingdom of England, its. prer
scriptive usages were confirmed by royal charter. I*
first sent representatives to the English parliament in
the reign of Henry VIIL, since which time it has continued
to return two members: the right of election is
vested in the burgesses at large, in number about one
thousand) the mayor and bailiffs are the returning
officers.
The living is a vicarage, within the jurisdiction of
the Consistorial Court of Durham, rated in the king's
books at £20, endowed with £1000 private benefaction,
and £1500 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage
of the Dean and Chapter of Durham. The church, dedicated
to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome structure
in the decorated style of English architecture; it was
built during the usurpation of Cromwell, and is consequently
without a steeple. There are two places of
worship for those connected with the Scottish Kirk,
and one each for Particular Baptists, Burghers, Anti*
burghers, the Scottish relief, and Wesleyan Methodists.
The free grammar school, founded originally by the corporation,
and endowed, in the middle of the seventeenth
century, by Col. Strother, with the estate of Coldmarten,
is under the management of the corporation, who apr
point the master; he has a salary of & 80 per annum, and
a house and garden, and receives ten shillings per quarter
for every scholar who is not the son of a freeman,
A school for the instruction of the sons of burgesses in
English, Latin, and the mathematics, was founded and
endowed by the corporation in 1798; to each department
there is a separate master, each of whom, in addition to
his salary, has a house and garden. The Blue-coat
charity school, in which forty-two boys are clothed
and educated, was founded by Captain James Bolton,
in 1725, and endowed with & 800, since augmented by
various benefactions; the master has a salary of & 50 per
annum. The school of industry for girls, established in
1819, is supported by the ladies of Berwick, and aifords
instruction to one hundred and six girls. There is also
a school in connexion with the workhouse, in which
about one hundred children are educated; the master
has a salary of £60 per annum, which is paid out of
the poor's rate. A pauper lunatic asylum was erected
in. 1813; and there is a dispensary, established in 1814,
under the patronage of the Bishop of Durham, which
affords relief to the poor within twelve miles of the
town, and is attended by four physicians, three surgeons,
and a dispensing apothecary. There are some trifling
remains of the castle, and a pentagonal tower near it, a
square fort in Magdalene fields, and some intrenehments
on Hallidown Hill. A Benedictine nunnery is stated to
have been founded by David, King of Scotland, who
died in 1153; here were also monasteries of Black, Grey,
White, and Trinitarian friars, and three or four hospitals,
but every vestige of them has long disappeared.