Seaside Special - Border Patrol: East Lothian and The Borders
A sunlit arrival felt appropriate. As if shining a torch on the missing link in my perambulation around the coast. All the other destinations have been scribed in these posts and the remaining few counties have already visited, logged and are ready to upload. The Borders were the glaring omission. I had never stayed before, only ever zipping through on the East Coast Main Line between Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Edinburgh.
Dunbar is a town that has a long and important history, based on its defensive position, border warfare and close links with the Scottish crown. So I was mildly surprised that fishing was the dominant characteristic. In common with many towns on the east coast of Scotland, the two harbours here landed herring – the ‘silver darlings’ of literature – which were lugged south in creels down the Herring Road to be sold at the market in Lauder.
My own first port of call was the chippy just off the High Street, where I mistook deep fried haggis for a battered sausage and was roundly ridiculed. I’d correctly identified the deep fried half-slice pizza and white pudding on the warming shelf, but had to wait for my sausage to be cooked fresh. I sat by Victoria harbour on a picnic bench and scoffed the battered savoury treat together with a pile of chips and a lake of curry sauce. I had to work quickly. The curry sauce was simply too thin and ran to the corners of the box, dripping out at the edges as I attempted to mop it up with the fat chips.
The sharp tang of salt and seaweed was carried on a breeze up from the harbour and overwhelmed the lingering whiff of my vinegary lunch. The quay was quiet, despite the start of the Easter school holidays. Just a few family groups pottering about and a bit of activity by the fishing boats that landed langoustine these days and sold them mostly to local restaurants and hotels. I was looking out over the calm water towards the remains of Dunbar castle at the harbour mouth. It had seen plenty of action during the turbulent middle ages, including as a refuge for Royal visitors, in the shape of Edward II and later Mary Queen of Scots, fleeing trouble. But the best story surely is the one told via a plaque on the wall of the Bear and Bull pub about Black Agnes. She was the Countess of Dunbar and the daughter of Robert the Bruce’s nephew. In 1337 she repelled a five-month English siege of the castle aided by only a few local men.
Although the ruin in front of me was dramatic, with a few crumbling walls and a finger of sandstone tower poised precariously atop a pitted, shrub-infested headland, this was only a fraction of the full fortress. The castle had been slighted in 1488, subsequently rebuilt and then largely demolished in 1567 after Mary, Queen of Scots surrendered and abdicated. The final ignominy came in 1844 when the new harbour was being built. The older Cromwell harbour behind me was too small - its entrance littered with a minefield of rocks perilous to the larger boats that were by then working the port. However, to provide access to the new, soon-to-be-named Victoria harbour, the remaining castle and headland were simply dynamited away! Blasted to oblivion. I’d love to have seen these constructors take on the bureaucracy of HS2.
The town had a strong period of affluence as a popular holiday resort. The largest outside pool in Scotland was bult just around the corner from the castle, but as visitor numbers declined the pool and adjoining pavilion were demolished in the 1980s. On my perambulations, I stood on the spot where the pool had once been and enjoyed the aspect out to sea over the cliffs, but had a perverse sense of nostalgia for a facility I had never known! What an asset the pool would have been today. I’ll add lidos and outside pools to the list of seaside architectural vandalism I’ve seen on these trips that also includes closure and demolition of railway lines and stations, theatre and cinemas, spas and (of course) pubs. I sound like a reactionary old fart!
But Dunbar seems to be on the up again. Visitor numbers are increasing and some of the tired, but good looking, fore-square, brick-and-render town houses and mansions were being renovated in partnership with the Dunbar Conservation Society. Dunbar is being seen as a destination for young families moving out of Edinburgh who need more space, less expense and access to nature, but still within easy commute of the capital (and assuming a bit of WFH). Some of this information comes courtesy of some research on Mum’s Net, that rock-solid barometer of middle class habits.
Golf. As well as sunshine, Dunbar has more than its fair share of golf. I headed down the coast, where the orange rock pediment shelved out into the tide, pitted with sea-weedy pools and fissured with erosion. The golf course abutted hard up against the shore. Manicured greens and springy fairways sharply distinctive, but not unpleasantly so, with the rock-strewn seascape.
The course was busy. A sign outside the clubhouse declared this to be a venue for a final qualifying round for The Open. This carried some clout and drew in golfers from near and far, judging by the mix of Scouse, Geordie and Manc accents I was picking up, in amongst the softer Borders burr and faster Edinburgh and Glaswegian tones. The path along the shoreline wove around tees and greens. I frequently had to wait for groups of golfers to pass through. All perfectly civilised and polite.
Barns Ness lighthouse on the headland provided a focal point for this piece of coastline. The adjacent Energy Recovery Facility also caught the eye, but that was because of the constant emission of gases from the treatment of post-recycling residual waste. Just beyond that sat the Torness nuclear power station. A curious landscape of jarring contrasts.
Beyond the ninth green and away to the right of the energy generation installations, the Brox Burn flowed calmly amongst mixed woodland. This is the location of the brutal 1650 Battle of Dunbar in the Civil War. The battle saw Cromwell’s Parliamentarians rout a much larger army of army of Scottish covenanters fighting for Charles I, after a surprise attack in atrocious weather. Around 5,000 prisoners were taken from the Scottish army, marched to Durham and then imprisoned in what became known as the Dunbar Drove. Many died on the march south, or in captivity. In September 2015 archaeologists found mass graves near Durham Cathedral holding the remains of the Scottish soldiers who appeared to have been tipped in with no signs of ceremony. Grim actions even at the time and would be seen as war crimes even in context of today’s belly-flopping morality.
Back at the harbour I chatted to an older couple sat on one of the benches on the dock, each sketching the scene in front of them: fishing boats moored at the quay, piles of lobster creels on the walls, a few cars parked behind and the pastel whitewash and brick of assorted buildings climbing the hill, now glowing mellow in the evening sun.
He was from Merseyside, she was local. They were retired and had lived here for years. They loved the town and the coast but conceded it was getting busier with visitors each Summer. We walked around to their car. She was slow, moving with arthritic hips, and he guided her by the elbow. I said that my next day’s destination was Eyemouth and they replied that it was a fine place, whilst gently correcting my pronunciation: not ‘…muth’ is in Plymouth, but ‘…mouth’ as in river mouth. It was the first time I’d been conscious of this north/south divide in enunciation. They wished me well with my journey.
Belhaven brewery lies in Dunbar. I used to drink these wonderful beers as a young, rosy cheeked civil servant back in the late 80’s in an unlikely back-street boozer off the Lambeth Walk. How the Jolly Gardeners had come to stock Belhaven 80 shilling, a malty classic ale, I do not know. I never came across these beers in any other London pub at that time.
An homage to the brewery was well overdue. I doffed my metaphorical cap as I strolled by the buildings on my way to the eponymous Belhaven Bay. Later I had a pint of the lovely stuff in the Volunteer Arms down by the harbour. (Golf again. My neighbours at the next table, wearing ‘The Open’ baseball caps, were having a deep conversation about fourballs.)
Belhaven Bay would rival many of the stunning locations Mrs A and I visited on our remarkable NC 500 road trip a couple of years ago. I’d arrived as the sun was declining, not by accident, and spent many wonderful minutes on the cliff path.
Sometimes on these trips, I have to will myself to pause and consciously break the flow of exploration; to take stock of the moment and not just give in to the desire to see what’s around the next bend, over that hill, down the street. That night, I didn’t have to struggle with balance. My Dad had died the previous month. For good measure, just prior, I had resigned from my job. There was plenty of emotion and no little anxiety spinning around my fuzzy little brain. The sinking sun played on the ebbing tide to animate ripples of light and shadow around dark rocks. Currents and eddies filled the scene with shifting patterns of silver and gold in the retreating waters below layered hills on the horizon. The air was turning chilly and I zipped up my hoodie, but inside I was warmed, calmed and settled. Nature’s healing.
The path was perfectly quiet. I hadn’t seen a soul for ages (unless you count a couple of distant figures behind me on one of Dunbar’s limitless golf courses). My train of no-thought was broken, very gently, when a slight, grey-haired, spritely woman of retirement age rounded the bend and stood nearby to enjoy the view. I passed a remark about the gorgeous twilight outlook. She concurred and said she tried to get up to that point whenever she could. How lucky she was to live there, she remarked, as much to the broad haven below us as to me.
The bay was backed by an open space known as the John Muir Country Park. John Muir was big in these parts - my new friend just happened to be the curator at the museum in town dedicated to his life and work. I had to confess I’d never heard of him. Luckily, she was quite an advocate. Muir was born here in 1838 and emigrated to the USA aged 11, I gathered, where he went on to become an inspirational environmentalist and conservationist. He is known as the Father of America’s National Parks. He often wrote of Dunbar and how it inspired his love of nature.
The curator was very keen that I should visit her museum the next day. I mentioned that I’d also noticed the Town House Museum on the High Street. An observation met with disdain. ‘Oh, they don’t have much of a permanent exhibition there. It’s pot luck really, and not open that often. We’ve got a really informative and wide-ranging display!’ I shiftily promised that I’d try to call in…
My phone’s step counter was spinning double-time by the time I made it back to the High Street, and my feet were crying for mercy. I made a play of checking out a few different restaurants and pub eateries, but there was really only one serious contender. I made for the Shapla curry emporium in the shadow of Lauderdale House, the town’s Robert Adam-designed mansion building at the head of the thoroughfare.
Berthed by the window, I relaxed over the menu in time-honoured fashion with a Cobra and poppadoms. A chicken tikka naga special duly arrived and was polished off with eagerness. The waiter admired my licked-clean plate and told me, with some respect, that I’d ordered the second hottest dish on the menu (the hottest being a vindaloo, of course). As if that didn’t pump me up enough, the busy table in the centre of the room celebrating Rory’s birthday sent over a large slab of sticky, sweet sponge cake. ‘We didn’t want to leave you out!’ shouted Rory’s Dad in my direction. I was the only customer in this half of the restaurant and their inclusive gesture was well-received. I raised my glass to Rory, a flush-faced, dark haired, new 29-year-old, and scoffed the cake in three lusty bites. They looked set in for the evening, I wished them well and headed for the hotel.
I should have lingered longer. The gaff was pretty poor. We’ll pass over the unviewable telly with the smashed screen, the stale-smelling pall in the tiny room, the lukewarm shower that issued a barely tepid stream after a full five minutes of soaking, the absence of a plug in the sink which made shaving a constant topping-up race against the whirlpool drainage, and the dim glow from the solitary working light. Instead we’ll mention the decent breakfast next morning and the jolly friendly staff.
I waited for the hourly bus for Eyemouth dead opposite the John Muir museum, conscious that it opened at 10am. Furtively, and a little guiltily I was avoiding the friendly proprietor from the previous evening.
The journey down the coast passed through a string of quiet, neatly trimmed villages either side of the A1, the bus picking up and dropping off only a couple of passengers here and there. Innerwick was a particularly attractive settlement at the foot of a scree slope. The houses had good views over the coast, if you ignored the cement works, and were often built of the soft, deep red/brown sandstone quarried locally, used for Dunbar castle, the harbour walls and to decorate the frontages of the town’s tall, square Georgian townhouses. At Ayron I can’t have been the first to chuckle involuntarily as the bus crossed over the bridge signposted Eye Water!
Eyemouth was much more obviously pretty and attractive to tourists than Dunbar, with its horseshoe bay of decent sand backed by tight streets littered with craft and gift shops. And the best little bakers I've been to in a long time. Loughs Home Bakery was a tiny establishment which served a flat white with proper flavour and aroma, and a toffee caramel fudge slice heart-attack cake that seemed to stick to my insides on its slow journey all the way through to it's inevitable expulsion. Wonderful.
I felt the need to rest a while after that encounter and sat overlooking the harbour, which the local authority claimed was the largest and most secure in the area, providing a base for small creel boats to larger trawlers, as well as offshore wind workboats, survey vessels and touring leisure craft.
After a study of the OS app, I decided to strike out north above the town and see how far I got before returning to Eyemouth for the bus to Berwick. St Abb’s Head looked too far, but St Abbs itself was a likely target.
There was a short detour off the coast path to Eyemouth fort, a sixteenth century defensive structure symbolising the various bloody battles and political machinations of border disputes between the English, the Scots and their sometime allies, the French. The fort was built, destroyed, rebuilt and finally demolished in the late-1500s. Now, very little was left bar the outlook up the coast from a dramatic outcrop, providing, today at least, a picnic spot for a large South Asian community from Edinburgh.
Beyond this spot, the walk was pleasantly quiet and I had the hills, cliffs and seascapes selfishly to myself. I passed only a few dog walkers and family groups. The trail was an easy amble. The temperature was about 10 degrees warmer than the previous day, so the coat went into the backpack and the jumper was tied around my waist in a double knot. Not, I hasten to add, casually thrown around my shoulders as if it was a lemon merino-wool sweater worn by some south-coast yacht club tosser.
The path got more challenging at Linkim Shore, where a descent down a ravine opened up to a spectacular sand and shingle beach. Burnt-out fires suggested night time gatherings in this beautifully remote spot, presumably taking advantage of the recent settled weather. But no litter. Not a speck.
I passed a few more walkers and visitors as I left this bay in my wake and climbed up to Yellow Craig Head, thighs burning a little by then, over the top and then tumbling towards Milldown Burn. Some kids were playing in the lively, chilly stream which issued straight out of the hills. I rested my hands on the bridge rail in the shade of mature trees. 'Nice spot', I said to their Dad. 'Aye', came the reply, ‘it's mad over there though', pointing up the cliff. His daughter concurred. 'Millions of people!' she said. I laughed doubtfully. But she wasn’t far wrong. Over the next incline, I paused above Coldingham Bay, staggered by the scene beneath me which was as busy as any high summer day. This was early April. I grabbed a seat on the steps to the beach and marvelled at the perfect little bay of soft sand and clear water, backed by beach huts painted in bright hues beneath low, green hills. There was breeze enough to keep bodyboarders interested and customers enough to keep the beach cafe busy. And more than enough over-wintered white Scottish bodies to keep me wearing the sunnies.
I took a wrong turn on the last schlep into St Abbs, following the track up to the road by mistake, and saw the rammed car park opposite a hotel. Confirmation, as if it was needed, of the popularity of the beach below. I wondered how far people had travelled to this sparsely populated bit of coastline. The clifftop also revealed a cul-de-sac of huge modern houses with commanding views, which I goggled at before retracing my steps back down to the beach and a final cliff ascent into the more traditional fishing-port architecture of St Abbs.
Cresting the final climb, the view of the harbour seemed to pop out of the hilltop horizon and caused me a proper wobbly knee moment. Two steps back down the hill and there was nothing to see but cliff and sky.
The village used to be known as Coldingham Shore, but was renamed in the late 19th century to distinguish the growing village from its larger neighbour Coldingham,
Much smaller than either Dunbar or Eyemouth there was a mixture of lobster skiffs, diving boats and pleasure craft for hire in its fine harbour. The lifeboat station, independent of the RNIB, stood proud on the inner wall. There were a couple of holiday cottages in amongst the permanent residences hard up against the quays. But Ebbscar’s café was the main point of focus, with its tables sprawling down towards the quay and back up the hill, nearly all full.
Back up the cliff, I made for the former schoolhouse which was now a visitor centre. Outside was a sculpture commemorating a fishing disaster that hit the east coast villages in the 1880’s. There was a similar one in Eyemouth. I paused to admire the view towards passed the Usher's clifftop mansion towards St Abb’s Head and quietly wondered at my simple good luck with the weather. Azure skies and searching sunshine that was making every detail of this ancient, tough coastline pop and crackle. Even without the atmospheric conditions, this two-day excursion to East Lothian and The Borders would stand up as one of the finest bits of seaside I have visited.
Inside the centre, I learned that in the 1880s Coldingham Shore Harbour was improved at a cost of £13,000 and was re-opened on 18 October 1890. Much investment at this time came from the Usher family whose estate included St Abbs. Although the Usher family made their money through a whisky distilling business, they insisted on abstinence on their estate. There is no pub in the village.
On that basis, it was time to leave. I had taken too long rambling over to St Abbs to make the return to Eyemouth on foot. I took the hourly bus service to Berwick instead.
My train home was delayed and I had time to stroll along the north bank of the Tweed underneath the town’s famous bridges.
I climbed the bank to Castle Vale Park by the station and watched yet another glorious sunset.
Can’t get enough.
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