Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed, sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded Berwick's population as 12,043.
The town is at the mouth of the River Tweed on the east coast, south east of Edinburgh, north of Newcastle upon Tyne, and north of London. Uniquely for England, the town is slightly further north than Denmark's capital Copenhagen and the southern tip of Sweden, further east of the North Sea, which Berwick borders.
Berwick was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement in the Kingdom of Northumbria, which was annexed by England in the 10th century. A civil parish and town council were formed in 2008 comprising the communities of Berwick, Spittal and Tweedmouth. It is the northernmost civil parish in England.
For more than 400 years, the area was central to historic border wars between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, and several times possession of Berwick changed hands between the two kingdoms. The last time it changed hands was when Richard, Duke of Gloucester retook it for England in 1482. To this day, many Berwickers feel a close affinity to Scotland. Both Berwick Rangers Football Club and Berwick Rugby Football Club play in Scottish leagues.
Berwick remains a traditional market town and also has some notable architectural features, in particular its medieval town walls, its Georgian Town Hall, its Elizabethan ramparts, and Britain's earliest barracks buildings, which Nicholas Hawksmoor built for the Board of Ordnance.
Name
Berwick's name is of the same origin as the word berewick, denoting a portion of farmland which was detached from a manor and reserved for a lord's own use. This comes from the Old English berewíc, meaning "corn farm" . Its earliest recorded spelling, as Berewich, dates from 1167. There are several places in Britain with the same name; one such is North Berwick in Scotland, and Berwick-upon-Tweed has also been called "South Berwick" in Scottish sources. The medieval seal of the town showed a bear and a wych tree as a pun on the name.History
Early history
In the post-Roman period, the area was inhabited by the Brythons of Bryneich. Later, the region became part of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia. Bernicia later united with the kingdom of Deira to form Northumbria, which in the mid-10th century entered the Kingdom of England under Eadred.Berwick remained part of the Earldom of Northumbria until control passed to the Scots following the Battle of Carham of 1018. The town itself was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement during the time of the Kingdom of Northumbria.
Scottish burgh
Between the late 10th and early 11th centuries, the land between the rivers Forth and Tweed came under Scottish control, either through conquest by Scotland or through cession by England. Berwick was made a royal burgh by David I. David also established many of the shires of Scotland, with Berwick becoming the county town of Berwickshire, which covered the town and a largely rural area to the north-west of it. A mint was present in the town by 1153. In 1276, William de Baddeby was Constable of Berwick.While under Scottish control, Berwick was referred to as "South Berwick" to differentiate it from the town of North Berwick, East Lothian, near Edinburgh.
Berwick had a medieval hospital for the sick and poor, which the Church administered. A charter under the Great Seal of Scotland, confirmed by King James I of Scotland, grants the king's chaplain "Thomas Lauder of the House of God or Hospital lying in the burgh of Berwick-upon-Tweed, to be held to him for the whole time of his life with all lands, teinds, rents and profits, etc., belonging to the said hospital, as freely as is granted to any other hospital in the Kingdom of Scotland; the king also commands all those concerned to pay to the grantee all things necessary for the support of the hospital. Dated at Edinburgh June 8, in the 20th year of his reign."
Disputed territory
Berwick's strategic position on the Anglo-Scottish border during centuries of war between the two nations and its relatively great wealth led to a succession of raids, sieges and takeovers. William I of Scotland invaded and attempted to capture northern England in 1173–74. After his defeat in 1174, Berwick was ceded to Henry II of England under the Treaty of Falaise, along with four other castles at Edinburgh, Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Stirling, with the five castles to be garrisoned with English troops paid for at Scottish expense. The Treaty of Falaise was annulled in 1189 when William paid Richard I of England 10,000 marks sterling to contribute towards the latter's crusade.Berwick had become a prosperous town by the middle of the 13th century. According to William Edington, a bishop and chancellor of England, Berwick was "so populous and of such commercial importance that it might rightly be called another Alexandria, whose riches were the sea and the water its walls".
In 1291–92, Berwick was the site of Edward I of England's arbitration in the contest for the Scottish crown between John Balliol and Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale. The decision in favour of Balliol was pronounced in the Great Hall of Berwick Castle on 17 November 1292.
In 1296, England went to war with France, with which Scotland was in alliance. Balliol invaded England in response, sacking Cumberland. Edward, in turn, invaded Scotland and captured Berwick, destroying much of the town and massacring the burgesses, merchants and artisans of the town.
Edward I went again to Berwick in August 1296 to receive formal homage from some 2,000 Scottish nobles, after defeating the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar in April and forcing John Balliol to abdicate at Kincardine Castle the following July. At this time, work began on building the town walls ; these fortifications were complete by 1318 and subsequently improved under Scottish rule. An arm of William Wallace was displayed at Berwick after his execution and quartering on 23 August 1305.
In 1314, Edward II of England mustered 25,000 men at Berwick, who later fought in the crushing defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. Between 1315 and 1318, Scottish armies, sometimes with the help of Flemish and German privateers, besieged and blockaded the town, finally capturing it in April 1318.
England retook Berwick the day after the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333. The Scots briefly took control of the town of Berwick after a siege in November 1355, but were in turn besieged by the English, who retook the town in January 1356. In October 1357, a treaty was signed at Berwick by which the Scottish estates undertook to pay 100,000 marks as a ransom for David II of Scotland, who had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Neville's Cross on 17 October 1346. In 1461, Berwick was ceded back to Scotland by Margaret of Anjou on behalf of her husband, Henry VI, in return for help against the Yorkists during the Wars of the Roses.
Robert Lauder of Edrington was put in charge of the castle. He was succeeded in 1474 by David, Earl of Crawford. On 3 February 1478, Robert Lauder of the Bass and Edrington was again appointed Keeper of the castle, a position that he held until the final year of Scottish control, when Patrick Hepburn, 1st Lord Hailes, had possession.
In 1482, Richard, Duke of Gloucester recaptured the town. Thomas Gower was the English marshal of Berwick 1543–1552. The Scots did not accept this conquest evidenced by innumerable charters for at least two centuries after this date, but never regained control of the town. over a little more than 400 years, Berwick had changed hands more than a dozen times.
English town
Much of southern Scotland was again invaded by England during the "Rough Wooing" of 1543–1551. The war ended with the Treaty of Norham in 1551, which saw England withdraw back to the border as had existed before the war began, and so retaining Berwick. Under the treaty, Berwick was declared to be a free town, independent of either kingdom. In practice it was controlled by England and sent members of parliament to the English parliament, but as an independent borough, outside the authority of the sheriffs of any English county, similar to a county corporate.During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, vast sums – one source reports "£128,648, the most expensive undertaking of the Elizabethan period" – were spent on its fortifications, in a new Italian style, designed both to withstand artillery and to facilitate its use from within the fortifications. These fortifications have been described as "the only surviving walls of their kind". Sir Richard Lee designed some of the Elizabethan works, and the Italian military engineer Giovanni Portinari was also involved in the project.
File:A lidar view of Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland.jpg|thumb|A lidar over the ridge and furrow of Magdalene Fields to the northern fortifications of the town
Berwick's role as a border fortress town ended with England and Scotland's Union of the Crowns. On 6 April 1603, James VI of Scotland crossed the Border on his journey southwards to be crowned James I of England. He was met at Lamberton by the Lord Governor of Berwick with a mounted party from the garrison and was conducted into the town. In December 1603, the Crown ordered the dissolution of the garrison of Berwick and the number of soldiers was reduced to 100 men and pensioners.
In 1639, the army of Charles I faced that of General Alexander Leslie at Berwick in the Bishops' Wars, which were concerned with bringing the Presbyterian Church of Scotland under Charles's control. The two sides did not fight, but negotiated the Pacification of Berwick.
Berwick Bridge, also known as the "Old Bridge" dates to 1611. It linked Islandshire on the south bank of the River Tweed with the county burgh of Berwick on the north bank. Holy Trinity Church was built in 1648–52. It is the most northerly parish church in England and was built under special licence from Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth period.