Berwick-upon-Tweed

Wikipedia contributors · CC BY-SA · EN · 04/10/2026

Berwick-upon-Tweed , sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England. It lies 2.5 mi south of the Anglo-Scottish border and is the northernmost town in England. The 2011 census recorded Berwick's population as 12,043.

The town is at the mouth of the River Tweed on the east coast, 56 mi south-east of Edinburgh, 65 mi north of Newcastle upon Tyne and 345 mi 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 (later King Richard III) 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 (1717–1721) for the Board of Ordnance.

Toponymy

Berwick's name is of the same origin as the word berewick, denoting a portion of farmland that was detached from a manor and reserved for a lord's own use. This comes from the Old English berewíc, meaning "corn farm" (more specifically, bere refers to barley). The earliest recorded spelling, 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 (reigned 1124–1153). 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 8 June, 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 on 30 March 1296, 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 (and rebuilding the earlier Castle); 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 (but not its castle) 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 1378, Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland besieged and took Berwick-on-Tweed. 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 (later Richard III) 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" (also known as the Eight Years' War) 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 (trace italienne), 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.

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.

British town

In 1707, the Act of Union united England and Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. Since then, Berwick has remained within the laws and legal system of England and Wales. The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 (since repealed) deemed that whenever legislation referred to England, it applied to Berwick without the need for a specific reference to the town.

Until the 1830s, the borough boundaries of the town were identical to the parish of Berwick, which lay entirely on the north side of the River Tweed, covering the main part of the built-up area and the rural areas immediately north-west of it. By that time, Tweedmouth on the south side of the river had grown to a sizeable population, effectively as a suburb of the town but outside the borough boundaries. Under the Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 the parliamentary borough (constituency) of Berwick was enlarged to include the townships of Tweedmouth and Spittal south of the Tweed. Three years later, the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 standardised how boroughs were governed across England and Wales, and Berwick's municipal boundaries were enlarged to match the parliamentary borough, bringing Tweedmouth and Spittal under the jurisdiction of Berwick's town council. The same act also formalised Berwick's status as an independent county corporate. The population of the borough in 1841 was 12,578, and that of the parish was 8,484.

In the 1840s, Samuel Lewis included similar entries for Berwick-upon-Tweed in both his England and Scotland Topographical Dictionary.

Berwick remained a county in its own right, and remained a separate parliamentary constituency until 1885 when it was merged to become a division of Northumberland under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. In 1889 elected county councils were established under the Local Government Act 1888, which were based on the parliamentary boundaries of counties, and so Berwick was brought under the jurisdiction of Northumberland County Council, with the town council thereafter being a lower-tier authority subordinate to the county council.

England now is officially defined as "subject to any alteration of boundaries under Part IV of the Local Government Act 1972, the area consisting of the counties established by section 1 of that Act, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly", which thus includes Berwick. In the 1972 act's reorganisation of English local government from 1 April 1974, the Borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed was created by the merger of the previous borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed with Belford Rural District, Glendale Rural District and Norham and Islandshires Rural District.

The Interpretation Act 1978 provides that in legislation passed between 1967 and 1974, "a reference to England includes Berwick upon Tweed and Monmouthshire."

In 2009, the Borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed was abolished as part of wider structural changes to local government in England. All functions previously exercised by Berwick Borough Council were transferred to Northumberland County Council, which is the unitary authority for the area.

Governance

During periods of Scottish administration, Berwick was the county town of Berwickshire, to which the town gave its name. Thus at various points in the Middle Ages and from 1482 (when Berwick became administered by England), Berwickshire had the unique distinction of being the only county in the British Isles to be named after a town in another country.

Source and attribution

Adapted from “Berwick-upon-Tweed” by English Wikipedia contributors. Main paragraphs and sections are retained; tables, reference markers and technical markup are omitted. This is an encyclopedic adaptation, not a personal review. Original revision and contributor history ↗. Text is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗. Check current visitor access, tickets and transport with the relevant operator.