Berwick-upon-Tweed

55.771388888889 -2.0063888888889Coordinates: 55 ° 46 ′ N , 2 ° 0 ′ W

Berwick-upon-Tweed

Berwick-upon-Tweed [ ˈbɛɹɪk ] is a city in Northumberland on the east coast of England and the northernmost city of England . It is located on a peninsula at the mouth of the River Tweed , which in this area forms the border between England and Scotland . Although the city is on the north (Scottish) side of the river, it belongs to England as the border runs around Berwick, making it the only part of England north of the Tweed. But it also gave its name to the Scottish county of Berwickshire , of which it was the capital in the Middle Ages . Berwick was the administrative seat of the former Borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed . At the 2001 census , the city (including the hamlets of Spittal, Tweedmouth and Ord) had 11,665 inhabitants and the district 25,949.

The name of the city goes back to the Anglo-Saxon Bere-wic , which means "barley farm". The local dialect , Tweedside, is a mixture of the Scottish dialect of the Lowlands and the dialect of Northumberland , but leans much more towards Scottish. This corresponds to the fact that the distance to the Scottish capital Edinburgh is slightly shorter than to Newcastle upon Tyne , the center of north-east England .

Due to its unique location, Berwick had a key strategic position in the wars between England and Scotland for more than 300 years from the middle of the 11th century and was the scene of a number of important military events in the Anglo-Scottish border wars. This border location characterizes the city to this day. It is also reflected in the architecture of the city, especially in the superbly preserved fortifications from Elizabethan times .

economy

Berwick is a market town and, including Tweedmouth on the south bank of the Tweed, a (if very modest) seaport. 59.5% of the population are employed, the unemployment rate is 3.6%, 19% are retired. A little over 60% of the workforce is active in the service sector (trade, hotel and restaurant industry, banks, public administration and health care), around 13% work in manufacturing, 10% in agriculture and 8% in construction. The most important branches of the economy include salmon fishing , shipbuilding, mechanical engineering, sawmills, fertilizer production and the production of tweed and jersey days.

Sports

Berwick is the only English city whose football team , Berwick Rangers , and rugby team play in their respective Scottish leagues. The Berwick Bandits' speedway team competes in the British Premier League (2nd division).

history

Berwick-upon-Tweed as seen from the south bank of the Tweed

A first settlement emerged towards the end of the 1st millennium; it was then part of the Kingdom of Northumbria . In 1018 Northumbria had to cede all areas north of the Tweed to the Scots after the Battle of Carham . In the first quarter of the 12th century, King David I made Berwick one of the four royal castles.

Not least thanks to the associated privileges, the city developed into Scotland's most important port, which in the 13th century generated more than a quarter of all customs revenue in the country. The export of timber, grain and salmon made Berwick the largest and richest city in Scotland. A contemporary description of the city claimed it was "so populated and so important to trade that it could rightly be called the second Alexandria , whose wealth was the sea and whose wall was the water".

This "golden age" of Berwick ended with the destruction of the city by Edward I of England in 1296. Due to its strategic location on the English-Scottish border, which had been contested for centuries, Berwick-upon-Tweed was subsequently at the center of armed conflicts. Between 1296 and 1482, ownership of the city changed hands no less than thirteen times between England and Scotland, and it was attacked and besieged more often than any other European city.

Historical data

In 1174, Berwick was transferred to England as pledge for the submission of William I of Scotland , who had been captured by Henry II of England while attempting to conquer Northumberland . In 1190 William I bought his independence back from Richard the Lionheart for 10,000 Marks, which Richard needed to finance his crusade , and Berwick became Scottish again. In 1216 the city was destroyed by the English king Johann Ohneland .

On March 30, 1296 Berwick was stormed and sacked by Edward I of England after a brief siege . Almost all the residents remaining in the city were slain, even those who had fled to the churches. Under Edward I, the construction of the first city wall began, of which only small remains have been preserved. After the rebel leader William Wallace , who had temporarily conquered the city, was executed and quartered in London on August 23, 1305, one of his arms was displayed in Berwick.

On April 1, 1318, the city was captured by treason from the Scots; however, the castle fell after a three-month siege. At the end of the more than three-month "great siege" of 1333, Berwick returned to English possession after the Battle of Halidon Hill , in which it remained for more than a hundred years, although the Scots in 1355, 1377 and 1384 were able to recapture briefly. In October 1357 the Scottish Estates signed a treaty in Berwick in which they undertook to raise 100,000 marks in ransom for King David II , who had been captured by the English at the Battle of Neville's Cross on October 17, 1346.

In 1461 Heinrich VI. England gave the city to Scotland to show its appreciation for its support in the Wars of the Roses . In 1482 Richard III conquered . the town. Since then, Berwick has been under English administration.

1502 put a contract between Henry VII. Of England and James IV. Of Scotland found that Berwick to belong England, but not in the Kingdom of England lie (of but not within the Kingdom of England) . This established Berwick's special status under constitutional law for centuries. In 1551 Berwick received local self-government as "county corporate". During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) the enormous sum of £ 128,648 was invested in modernizing the city fortifications. It is said to have been the most expensive individual project in all of Elizabethan times. The fortifications were designed in the then completely new "New Italian style" with bastions and curtains , which was mainly designed for the use of and protection against artillery . They are the only surviving example of this type of fortress in Great Britain.

In 1603 Berwick was the first English city to pay homage to Jacob VI. from Scotland on his way to London to be coronated as James I of England . In 1639 the armies of Charles I of England and General Alexander Leslie faced each other at Berwick in the so-called " Bishops' War ", in which the aim was to bring the Presbyterian Church of Scotland under Charles I's control. However, the battle did not occur; instead, the two sides signed an agreement in June, the “Berwick Peace Treaty”, in which the king conceded that all disputes should be submitted to a new general synod or the Scottish parliament.

In 1746 Parliament passed the Wales and Berwick Act . This law determined that all laws of England should apply to Berwick as well. Up until that point in time, the validity of a law for Berwick-upon-Tweed had to be expressly stated in the legal text. However, Berwick remained an independent administrative unit. The Reform Act of 1832 reduced the number of parliamentary seats for Berwick from two to one. Through the territorial and administrative reform of 1885 Berwick lost the right to its own parliamentary representation. Since then it has been a constituency of the county of Northumberland . It was not until the administrative reform of 1974 that Berwick-upon-Tweed lost its last privileges and was fully incorporated into the county of Northumberland.

To this day, the Scottish side has repeatedly called for Berwick to belong to Scotland.

The state of war with Russia

The "state of war with Russia" is a modern legend of unclear origin, which a British television station refuted in the 1970s.

Due to Berwick's traditional special status under constitutional law, official notices often referred to "England, Scotland and the city of Berwick-upon-Tweed" until 1885. This is said to have included the declaration of war on Russia in the Crimean War of 1854, which Queen Victoria is said to have signed with "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British possessions". However, when the Paris Peace Treaty was signed in 1856, Berwick-upon-Tweed was forgotten. Formally, one of the smallest cities in Great Britain would have been at war with one of the most powerful states in the world for 113 years. It was not until 1966 that a Soviet envoy visited Mayor Robert Knox and signed a formal peace treaty with him. Allegedly Knox reportedly said afterwards: "Please tell the Russian people with that can sleep from now on quietly in his bed." Some commentators have noted, however, that Knox had crossed with the conclusion of a peace treaty his authority as mayor, because he was not the legal successor to Queen Victoria in terms of international relations and the problem thus persisted.

Other sources pointed out, however, that since the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 a separate mention of the city had become superfluous and thus a separate "state of war" never existed, since all sovereign rights were exercised by Great Britain from this point on.

In fact, Berwick was not even mentioned on the declaration of war on Russia in the Crimean War of 1854, as a British television station found in 1970.

Attractions

Fortifications around the old town. While the decaying Norman castle complex Berwick Castle was almost completely laid down in the 19th century to make way for the railway line (East Coast Main Line) and the train station, the Elizabethan ramparts remained largely intact despite extensive renovations in the 18th century and are one of the finest examples of a Renaissance fortress in Northern Europe.

Old Bridge, the old Tweed Bridge, built between 1611 and 1634 by order of King James I , a 355 m long arch bridge made of sandstone with 15 openings. It was part of the main road from London to Edinburgh and still serves as a (one-way) road bridge.

The Anglican Church of Holy Trinity was built under Cromwell between 1650 and 1652 and is notable for its Puritan style. For example, it does not have a bell tower; the bell of the neighboring town hall is rung for the church services.

The Berwick Barracks are the oldest purpose-built infantry barracks in England (until then the soldiers were housed in private quarters). They were built between 1717 and 1721, presumably based on a design by John Vanbrugh , and are now home to the City History Museum, an exhibition on the history of the British infantry and the Museum of the King's Own Scottish Borderers . This regiment was stationed in Berwick from 1882 to the mid-1960s; the regimental command is still there.

The town hall (Guildhall), built in the 1750s in the classical style, dominates the cityscape with its 50 m high tower. It used to house the city prison (now a museum) on the upper floor.

The Royal Border Bridge , designed and built under the direction of Robert Stephenson between 1847 and 1850 (opened by Queen Victoria ), is a 658 m long railway viaduct with 28 arches and a height of 38 m. The East Coast Main Line runs over them .

The Royal Tweed Bridge was completed in 1928 and was at that time the reinforced concrete bridge with the largest span in Great Britain with a length of 110 m . It was planned as part of the A1 motorway , which today runs via a bypass in the west of the city, and was completely renovated at the beginning of the 2000s.

The Union Bridge , built in 1820, spans the Tweed 8 km above the city and is the oldest suspension bridge in the world that is still in operation .

Ayton Castle is 11 kilometers north of the city , a neo-Gothic building from the 19th century that is still the residence of a noble family. Visits are possible, however.

Personalities

Mason Jackson , engraver , born in Berwick about 1820
Alexander Knox (1907–1995), Canadian actor, died in Berwick
The painter LS Lowry (1887–1976) regularly spent his holidays in Berwick and created numerous pictures of the city and the beach.
Henry Travers (1874–1965), British actor who a. a. the angel in Isn't life beautiful? played, grew up in Berwick
Wendy Wood , the controversial founder of the Scottish Patriots , has been arrested several times for moving boundary markings on the old Tweed Bridge.
Lucy Bronze (* 1991), English national football player, born in Berwick