This page is Berwick Through Time 2020: You can reach the 2022 version by clicking this link ==>
Berwick is full of fascinating buildings and landmarks. Bookmark this page to see a new featured building/landmark each day..
Here's your chance to find out something new about some of Berwick's historic buildings and structures. Researched and presented by local people, a new entry is added each day of Heritage Open Days to build up a gallery of structures. Select and click a tab below to reveal more.
A NEW Berwick Through Time 2021 will be published on 10th September 2021
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49-51 Marygate
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wilmott's Fortress Air Raid Shelter
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A Unique Parish Church
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The Brown bear
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The maclagan Memorial
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The Castle Hotel
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17 Tweed Street
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The Cowe Buildings
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The Old Gaol in Wallace Green
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The Holdman Wall and the Elizabethan pier
49-51 Marygate
49-51 Marygate, and the rear view from the True Description. The building was already 3 stories high by 1580 although the long range behind was still a single-story hall. The street frontage was remodelled in the 18th century.
49-51 Marygate: 1580 - 1825
51 Marygate, now Vision Express, belonged to the Rugg family. Thomas Rugg was a wealthy cloth-dealer or mercer who traded between London and Scotland. He and his wife Jane moved to Berwick in 1562 and in 1563 he was made a Freeman, with permission to trade from a shop in the street. He chose a property in the market place and soon he and his neighbour agreed to add a third storey to their houses. The large windows facing the river would have provided good views of the river and made the interiors much lighter; Rugg may have taken his wealthier customers upstairs to admire the high-quality fabrics more closely.
<< An imaginary view inside Rugg’s shop, based on his probate inventory. Jane sells spices to a customer in the street. Thomas Rugg is admiring the new painted cloth borders hung around the walls. Two soldiers relax on the settle; one tries on socks while the other wonders whether to buy a hat for his girlfriend or new strings for his lute.
In 1584 Thomas’s son Toby upgraded the house further by re-roofing the rear range to provide two upstairs bedrooms and a kitchen separate from the hall.
The family business did not last long in Berwick. After Thomas’s death in 1573 Jane married his assistant, allowing the business to continue. However it relied heavily on custom from the garrison and by the late 16th century there were fewer soldiers in the town. But Rugg’s probate inventory (a list of possessions taken after his death) gives a fascinating glimpse into his shop at a time when it was still thriving and customers could sit in comfort on a ‘long settle’ below ‘painted borders’ and admire shelves filled with lengths of colurful cloth and all
sorts of other goods from frying pans to socks and reams of paper, while the scent of spices perfumed the air.
For more detail on Rugg’s inventory and the sources used in this page, click here.
About the Author: Dr Catherine Kent is an historian with a background in architecture. She enjoys unpicking the history of buildings and landscapes and has raised suspicion among Berwick residents by staring too long at their garden walls.
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Wilmott’s Fortress Air Raid Shelter
Lindsay Allason Jones takes us inside a rare Second World War Wilmott's Fortress Air Raid Shelter which played a part in the Secret Army's defence of Britain. Discovered during a garden redesign in 2015, the shelter was excavated by a team from the University of Newcastle. The excavation also brought to light the unexpected role the shelter had played in the defence of Britain, having been used to listen to Uboat activity in the Channel via a radio installed in the shelter. The excavations were published in Current Archaeology Issue 332 (November 2015).
A Unique Parish Church
The Parish Church of Berwick-upon-Tweed is designated to Holy Trinity and with St Mary. This video welcomes you to the most northerly Parish Church in England.
The Brown Bear
This film by Jim Herbert, is about the history of, and structural changes to, the Brown Bear in Berwick-upon-Tweed.
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About the Author: Jim Herbert worked at Berwick Museum and Art Gallery for over twenty years. He now writes blog posts for Berwick Time Lines, conducts guided tours around Berwick and gives talks. He finds all periods of the Berwick’s history fascinating but his great love is Berwick Castle and the medieval walls which he has studied meticulously for many years.
The Maclagan Memorial
Linda Bankier narrates this contribution about the Maclagan Memorial which has had various homes in Berwick-upon-Tweed and commemorates a well known 19th century doctor.
About the Author: Linda Bankier is the Berwick Archivist and has run the Berwick Record Office for many many years. She has over 30 years experience delving into the archives of Berwick and North Northumberland, researching the history of people and unearthing unusual stories and information about the area in the past.
Linda also enjoys encouraging people to use the archives to understand and celebrate our rich and unique heritage.
The Castle Hotel
In this film, Jim Herbert describes the development of the Castle Hotel in Berwick-upon-Tweed..
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About the Author: Jim Herbert worked at Berwick Museum and Art Gallery for over twenty years. He now writes blog posts for Berwick Time Lines, conducts guided tours around Berwick and gives talks. He finds all periods of the Berwick’s history fascinating but his great love is Berwick Castle and the medieval walls which he has studied meticulously for many years.
Detail from Winter Encampment at Sassenheim, 1573. Hatfield House Archives CPM/1/39
Small single-storey houses in Guisnes Row appear in the left foreground, in front of the larger houses in Castle Street. Detail of ‘The South View of Berwick Upon Tweed’, Samuel Buck c.1743-5. Pen, ink and wash over graphite. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund.
17 Tweed Street
Why is 17 Tweed Street so different from other houses in the street? Part of the answer lies in the history of the site, which dates back to the 16th century.
The story begins with a soldier named William Dixon/Dickson, a gunner or 'cannoneer' who was redeployed to Berwick from France after the fall of Calais in 1558. On his arrival he was in his early 30s and ready to set up his own household. But housing in the town was scarce and his pay was only 10d. a day, so along with several of his regiment he built a house of his own using whatever materials he could find. The Calais gunners had been offered what is now the west side of Tweed Street (then called Windmill Hole) and William chose the plot which is now no. 17. A survey of 1562 records that
'William Dickson holdeth at will one tenement containing in length 14 yards and in breadth 8 yards. It is worth per annum 12d. He hath builded upon it 3 couple roomths.'
The house described here, of three bays based on two A-frames or crucks set up on the ground, would have looked something like those in the picture below. Although built cheaply it would accommodate his family until they were either posted elsewhere or could afford a more substantial house.
In 1578 William's son, William jr., had survived infancy and was in his mid-teens, possibly already planning his career as a gunner. William sr. purchased a grant for his plot, making it effectively a freehold property and thus worth redeveloping with a more permanent house (even though the house could be demolished for military reasons, as for all houses outside the fortifications).
The new house was probably built using mud walls on a stone base. It would have been single storey with a garret and a thatched roof, similar to those recorded in Windmill Hole by the Buck brothers 160 years later.
In 1666 a William Dixon was still living in Castlegate Ward in a house with one hearth and in January 1805 another William Dixon was born to ‘Robert Dixon, Master Gunner... & Margaret his wife’ in the same area. The census return of 1841 lists Robert, Margaret and William living in the same position on the street as Dickson’s original plot of 1562, and William was still in residence in 1871. By this time the threat of warfare had long passed and much of the street had been redeveloped as two-story stone houses or tenements, often linking two or more of the original plots. However the Dixon's three centuries of family ownership, very rare in a small urban house, meant that the site retained its individuality long enough to be redeveloped separately in the 20th century.
This research was part-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
About the author
Catherine Kent
Dr Catherine Kent is a historian with a background in architecture. She enjoys unpicking the history of buildings and landscapes and has raised suspicion among Berwick residents by staring too long at their garden walls. Catherine is a partner in Robin Kent Architecture and Conservation and an Honorary Fellow in the Department of History at Durham University.
The Cowe Buildings
What is the history of Wm Cowe & Sons who operated from these premises for over 100 years and produced the famous "Berwick Cockles" ?
Narrated by Cameron Robertson
The Old Gaol in Wallace Green
In 1835 the new Town council was told the Gaol on the top floor of the Town Hall in Marygate was not suitable for housing prisoners. A new gaol was built on Wallace Green. This video presentation by Linda Bankier provides an insight into the Berwick Court, its gaol and the treatment of prisoners.
About the author
Linda Bankier
Linda Bankier is the Berwick Archivist and has run the Berwick Record Office for many many years. She has over 30 years experience delving into the archives of Berwick and North Northumberland, researching the history of people and unearthing unusual stories and information about the area in the past. Linda also enjoys encouraging people to use the archives to understand and celebrate our rich and unique heritage.
The Holdman Wall and the Elizabethan Pier
In 1337 a ship belonging to Walter Brekheved of [King's] Lynn, carrying grain for Berwick, 'was driven by a storm against a wall called Holdman, with such force that she broke ... and all the grain was lost.’ ......