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where is scotland
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Message 1.Â
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Sunday, 27th February 2011
I posted this on Tas’s Bonnie Prince Charles thread a few days ago. Perhaps it wasn’t academic enough, or maybe I’d just posted it in the wrong place, or as I admitted perhaps it wasn’t wholly relevant to BPC… but definitely to the country. It prompted only one response from cloudy, unfortunately that didn’t help me… and the question still remains:
As a frequent visitor to Scotland… where exactly is it…
For me driving from the south coast, it’s just a bit short of as far as I dare go north on a tank full of juice without the fear of running on vapours… when I cross the border into Scotland there’s a huge ‘Welcome to Scotland’ sign… and that’s nice because when I go south and back home into England… it doesn’t say welcome, just an insignificant stone block, with one word carved upon it, ‘England’, and the early onset of moss.
When I was a kid at school Scotland was a mysterious land beyond Hadrian’s Wall… the home of some fella sat in a dank dark cave watching a spider. But of course that boarder was fixed by the Romans… where was the boarder prior to the Romans…
I believe the wall was built to make use of a natural geological bluff in the landscape… if I’d been a traveller before the wall went up, how would have known I was entering Scotland… who was afeared of who…
I believe cattle stealing was the major industry at the time, on both sides, and kicking off some major land disputes, did the border constantly change with each minor skirmish.
On the east coast the wall comes out at Wallsend… Newcastle. But the modern boundary is a few miles north of Berwick upon Tweed… I understand Berwick had a very interesting history… to quote wiki…
~~Berwick's strategic position on the English-Scottish border during centuries of war between the two nations and its relatively great wealth led to a succession of raids, sieges and take-overs. Between 1147 and 1482 the town changed hands between England and Scotland more than 13 times, and was the location of a number of momentous events in the English-Scottish border wars. One of the most brutal sackings was by King Edward I of England in 1296, and set the precedent for bitter border conflict in the Scottish Wars of Independence.~~
And as I understand it, the River Tweed that rises in Scotland and runs almost its entire course in Scotland, well known for its expensive salmon fishing discharges it’s waters into the North Sea at Berwick… England… yet is administered the entire length by Scotland, even that bit which is in England… so what was this boundary… a piece of elastic pinned on a map east to west… that was then stretched north and south to benefit the bigger landowners either side of its borders.
Did the Romans reach the top of Scotland… what made them fix the boarder so far south, and was it abandoned as soon as the Romans left… -
Message 2
Posted by VoiceOfReason (U14405333) on Sunday, 27th February 2011
The word is border!
The borders of most countries were allocated in a mostly haphazard way with not a lot of logic being applied and a lot have been pretty elastic over the years
As for the Romans I don't think they made it past the Antonine Wall but i'm no expert -
Message 3
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Sunday, 27th February 2011
Boarder border… no wonder I can’t find it. thanks for that… -
Message 4
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Sunday, 27th February 2011
It's a bit like those signs you see by the motorway.
"THE NORTH" it says. But they don't tell you when you get there! There isn't a sign anywhere that says 'You have now reached The North'
You could keep going until you fell off the end (unless the Orkney ferry happened to be there to catch you) and still not be sure. -
Message 5
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Monday, 28th February 2011
The Romans got North of the Antonine wall, all right, but they got a bit of kicking, and came back sharpish. I think Rangers got beat in Pittodrie that weekend, and when the Glesga lads wuz dodderin' hame, they met the Romans on the road.
No contest. -
Message 6
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 28th February 2011
It prompted only one response from cloudy, unfortunately that didn’t help me.Â
Sorry Bandick, I intended to come back with a longer post but never got round to doing so. Until now...
As a frequent visitor to Scotland… where exactly is it…
When I was a kid at school Scotland was a mysterious land beyond Hadrian’s Wall… the home of some fella sat in a dank dark cave watching a spider. But of course that boarder was fixed by the Romans… where was the boarder prior to the Romans…Â
Before the Romans, the idea of "The Border" isn't useful. The Brigante kingdom (itself a collection of tribes) which straddled the modern border from mid-Yorkshire/Lancashire to mid-Northumbria/Dumfries-ish would have found their Parisi neighbours in Easy Yorkshire more foreign than their northern neighbours the Selgovae. In terms of nailing down the actual line, then there just isn't the evidence to say. Certain settlements were recorded by the Romans as belonging to one tribe or another, but where the border lay between two different towns it would be impossible to say.
I believe the wall was built to make use of a natural geological bluff in the landscape…Â
And also a conveniently short distance from sea to sea. I think the traditional view that the wall itself was the border has gone. Rome had a presence north of the wall (for some of the time at least) when they built the Antonine Wall, and at other times by having individual garrisons to provide warning posts. So it's probable that the wall was in the Roman's border zone but didn't form the border itself.
if I’d been a traveller before the wall went up, how would have known I was entering Scotland…Â
You wouldn't. There were no obvious borders between the different British kingdoms. A Brigate farmer would have known that grazing cows on neighbouring hills was "abroad", but you as an outsider would have no idea that one side of a river was different to another.
I believe cattle stealing was the major industry at the time, on both sides, and kicking off some major land disputes, did the border constantly change with each minor skirmish.Â
I'm sure disputes arose frequently over who grazed what lands, though how firmly those rights was determined by agreements between kingdoms, or just locally between neighbours is another matter.
Did the Romans reach the top of Scotland… what made them fix the boarder so far south, and was it abandoned as soon as the Romans left…Â
They initially, and briefly occupied as far north as Aberdeenshire, but rapidly retreated south to roughly Hadrian's Wall. Someone with more knowledge might be able to explain the purpose of invading that far north, I think the traditional view was that they intended to conquer the whole island and found "Scotland" just not worth the effort. In Germany, they carried out fairly savage raids across the border simply to show the neighbours what would happen if they dared disturb Roman territory, so there could have been an element in that too. -
Message 7
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 28th February 2011
Hi bandick, hope you're feeling better.
If you are asking about the border of Scotland, you really have to wait until there is an entity which might think of itself as being the kingdom of Scotland in any sense we might recognise it, with relatively fixed borders, and that's not until the end of the 13 th c when they were approximately where they are today, although the Kingdom Of Scotland starts to coalesce around 900ad.
These boards are littered with the casualties of disputes over the nature of Hadrian's and briefly Antonine's walls. They have been variously characterised as defensive fortifications, customs' barriers, power statements, vanity projects, or ways of legitimising an emperor's position. Personally I'm inclined to believe they were a mixture of all of these but in no sense were they the southern border of a state.
After that 'Scotland' was comprised of a number of kingdoms, loosely the Picts in the North and East, Brythonic alt clut, Strathclyde, in the South West and Dal Riata in Argyle and the southern islands but also in Ulster. If you've driven that long and winding road to Campbeltown, down the Kintyre peninsula you'll understand why a tribal community grew up around the sea rather than across the inland mountains, forrests and sea lochs. As well there were the Gododdin (Brythonic) in the Lothians, Rheged in the far southwest and Lennox, north of the Clyde.
Add the Northumbrians and then the Vikings to the mix and things get even more complicated.
If you're interested in the early history of the country, 'Before Scotland' by Alistair Moffat is a really good, accessible read and still pretty up to date. -
Message 8
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 28th February 2011
the Kingdom Of Scotland starts to coalesce around 900adÂ
Round about the same time that a meaningful entity of England came into being.
If you're interested in the early history of the country, 'Before Scotland' by Alistair Moffat is a really good, accessible read and still pretty up to date.Â
This thread made me start my copy of Moffat's "The Wall: Rome's Greatest Frontier". He has a very readable style. -
Message 9
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 28th February 2011
Thanks for the suggestion, cloudy, I'll add that to the long list of books I hope to get round to. his research is usually pretty sound as well.
Moffat has a series on Radio Scotland at the minute, 'The Scots - a genetic journey' with Jim Wilson the geneticist, not bad at all, so I expect there's a book to go with it. -
Message 10
Posted by ArweRheged (U14720560) on Wednesday, 2nd March 2011
Modern Scotland is fairly clearly defined on the map (Berwick to just north of the Cumbrian Esk), but it wasn't always thus.
In Roman times, there was no Scotland at all (at least not as we understand it today). It is likely that Rome did get pretty much to the top, but there wasn't a lot of point them staying there. Geography and a lack of much worth exploiting probably convinced them that Hadrian's Wall - spanning as it does a particularly thin neck of land - was the best place for a frontier. That frontier had (I would argue) originally been established to weaken the Brigantes and Roman policy allowed the tribes immediately north of the Wall to exercise independence as allies of Rome - and a useful buffer against anyone further north.
In the Dark Age period, ownership of bits of what is now Scotland shifted, but was a broad mix of Picts, Dal Riadan "Scots" (especially in Argyll and the West), Britons (Strathclyde and the South West), and English (the South East up to about the Forth line) with a later influx of Vikings doing their stuff, especially on the northern and western coastal fringes.
Eventually, everything merged into one kingdom, although monarchs up to the '45 only ever exerted nominal control at best over parts of their realm.
At the time of the Conquest, the Scottish kings claimed ownership of most of Cumbria - the modern A66 may have been the de facto border, although English authority stretched further north on the eastern side. Much of Cumbria is not in Domesday and was not absorbed into England until the time of William Rufus - and therefafter remained disputed until the Treaty of York 150 years odd later. That fixed the border where it is now, with the exception of the Debatable Land - a sliver of land on the west near and around Canonbie which was only resolved in the 16th Century (I think) with the construction of the Scots Dike. It was only resolved then because even by local standards, the Debatable Land was becoming a particularly lawless place.
Berwick was an important place - along with Carlisle, the strongest place on the border. England eventually got it, thus your Tweed issues.
Regards,
A R -
Message 11
Posted by eristheapplethrower (U9524346) on Thursday, 3rd March 2011
I was slightly puzzled why no one mentioned the Battle of Carham and its significance in shaping the Border. Some people still debate its true significance as a defining moments in the creation of Scotland. And so they might since even the date of the battle is in some dispute, but we are talking early decades of the eleventh century.
I am aggrieved that no one has mentioned Hadden Stank or the Redden Burn two important places in the definition of the Border in the minds of the people who lived loved and raided in the eastern counties and sheriffdoms in the period of the Canmore dynasty and beyond.
I was beginning to despair that no one would mention the Treaty of York, but thank AR you landed that fish. It is an important date 1237.
But AR could I add a burgh to your list of important urban settlements? - that of Roxburgh, royal burgh of.... It was a vital trading and defensive settlement on the banks of the River Tweed. David I issued many charters from Roxburgh. It may be one of the most famous deserted burghs of Scotland, but it should not be airbrushed from a discussion of the Border in the high middle ages. Just because it is no longer there as a bustling. Its name lives on in that of small village and a historic county. But centuries ago, Roxburgh was a power burgh. -
Message 12
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Thursday, 3rd March 2011
How apposite that you should bring up Roxburgh since it was the setting of the border after the final capture of Berwick and its becoming part of England that cut Roxburgh off from its continental trading links and so destroyed any chance of it being rebuilt and regaining its position.
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Message 13
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 3rd March 2011
It's a bit like those signs you see by the motorway.
"THE NORTH" it says. But they don't tell you when you get there! There isn't a sign anywhere that says 'You have now reached The North'Â
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There is a sign off the M1 at Watford Gap services:
That said - the Watford Gap is located at a break in the escarpment which marks the natural boundary between the South East of England and the English Midlands. It's not, therefore, 'the North'. To reach the North of England you really need to have crossed either the rivers Trent or Humber or Mersey.
Significantly that 'Telegraph' article refers to 'Britain's north-south divide'. This is a prime example of a UK establishment organ instinctively (but erroneously) conflating 'Britain' with 'England'. The 'North' of Britain is, of course, Scotland. -
Message 14
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Thursday, 3rd March 2011
The 'North'? That's the bit where the M1 is cobbled. Old jest.
Few had ever heard about Watford Gap until the motorway opened.
When remarking on the insularity of Londoners, it was something like "they know nothing north of Watford" - meaning the junction.
Well, that makes sense. But now they say 'Watford Gap" - which is about as far north as Birmingham. Makes no sense. -
Message 15
Posted by ArweRheged (U14720560) on Saturday, 5th March 2011
Hi Aneris,
I suppose the importance of Carham depends on your views of who held Lothian previously. For my money, it was always a bit like Cumbria - a once Brythonic kingdom which had been relatively sparsely settled by the Anglians and where most people probably spoke the old language. My guess is that the old British kingdoms of Rheged and Lothian/Din Eidyn ended up as tributary states of Northumbria but were fairly ready to change hands - Cumbria eventually slipped under the control of British Strathclyde following the breaking of Northumbria by the Vikings. It was a fairly natural fit - Owain led the forces of Strathclyde at Carham and that name is decidedly Brythonic rather than Gaelic. It may well have been similar for Lothian.
The tendency to view battles like Carham in a nationalist context of England vs Scotland runs the risk of oversimplifying what was a much more complex and layered situation.
I agree about the importance of those border meeting points - the Lochmaben Stone, English Rockliffe and Kershopefoot have similar resonance on the western frontier.
Regards,
A R -
Message 16
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 5th March 2011
The significance of the Watford Gap long predates the opening of the M1 in 1959. The Roman road 'Watling Street' passes through there and the gap in the escarpment also marked the southernmost point of the boundary between the 3rd century Roman sub-provinces of Britannia Inferior and Britannia Superior. It's strategic importance was also relevent during the time of the Danelaw (with an east-west orientation then rather than north-south) and also during the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War. Today's Watford Gap services are also only the current manifestation of the former Watford Gap inn of the stagecoach era.
The term 'north of Watford' (meaning Watford in Hertfordshire), however, has certainly gained its own validity with regard to metropolitan Greater London. This is re-inforced by the term 'north of Watford Junction' which in turn can refer to either the railway junction or to Junction 5 on the M1.
Which term came first, however, is highly debateable but the sense should be made clear by the speaker.
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