Day Thirty Five

Sunday 18 July - Carlisle to Gretna Green.

I have been this way before. When I was walking round the coast of Great Britain, the walk from Carlisle to Gretna was a transition from the South bank of the Solway Firth (Cumbria, England) to the North bank (Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland). It is not entirely straightforward. Several rivers empty into the Solway, and each needs to be crossed.

The first up, the River Eden, I crossed while still in Carlisle. I then turned West, past the attractive cricket ground, to follow the North bank of the Eden almost to its mouth. Paths and suburban roads were interspersed until I walked under the main railway line, then it was paths all the way. The river is mature here, twisting and turning through classic water meadows. Men stood waist-deep in the river, lazily flicking fishhooks. When within earshot, most exchanged a brief hello, unlike bankside anglers, who are a miserable lot on the whole.

I was following the Cumbria Coastal Way in its last gasp. Not much is made of it – the occasional “CCW” on a footpath arrow being all the acknowledgment it receives. Where the channel splits and splits again, the path wanders from the bank to find its way across footbridges over tributary streams, regaining the bank just short of Rockcliffe. This is a well-named village. A rocky bluff forces the river to veer off to the left, and a gap in this higher ground provides an entrance to Rockcliffe, dominated by the dour church. I had a quick recce for a shop, but it didn’t look likely.

A dog-walker, with whom I had exchanged a greeting earlier, struggled to restrain about six dogs on leads as he stopped for a chat, confirming that the shop had closed about ten years ago. He asked where I was walking from and to, telling me that he had just walked the Cumbria Way. Since I had done some of it as part of this walk, we were able to swap notes. He was also planning to walk the West Highland Way next April or May, before the midge get going. I said I was intending to walk it in mid-September, and there was choral teeth-sucking about the midge prospects for then.

As predicted by the BBC weather girl, it started to rain at midday. But the forecast deluge never got going. After 45 minutes, the rain stopped, and it never returned for more than a minute or so. But there was enough rain to wet the grass thoroughly, and reveal an awkward fact, that my allegedly waterproof boots (bought, you might remember, in Malham to replace a pair which split) were not waterproof in any practical sense. They leaked, I think, past the tongues and possibly also through the stitching at the sides, enough to make my feet wet and lead to some rubbing and small blisters on toes. Luckily, some drier days later in the week gave them some recovery time, otherwise I might have been in trouble. Please ask if you want to know the make and model!

When the going gets marshy, the CCW cuts inland, leading by paths and lanes across the peninsula between the Eden and the Esk. Views across the Solway, which would have been limited anyway in the gloom, were further restricted by thick hedges.

The last time I crossed the Metal Bridge, it was the bottleneck between England’s motorway, the M6, and Scotland’s A74(M). Now it’s a multi-lane monster, traffic crossing without a thought of visiting the Metal Bridge Inn, which has closed. Alongside the motorway a normal road still crosses the bridge, but with no provision for pedestrians. The footpath just stops, but the there is a bit of scruffy verge behind a crash barrier, and I trotted along it and over the bridge. Prospects for walking further looked bleak (no verge), but a stile led over the crash barrier and on to the North bank of the Esk, which was strange. This was still England, and the riverbank is not a right of way, so why the stile?

As it happened, I had always intended to come this way, a last bit of trespassing before the relaxed rules of Scotland. Notices forbade me to fish or persecute the furry and the feathered, so I guess my presence was tolerated. Bits of low cloud gave the Solway a bedraggled and sombre air. Ahead, two people were digging, too far inland to be gathering bait. Just in case they owned the land, I gave them a wide berth and cut back towards the road, crossing the River Sark into Scotland, more specifically the strange phenomenon which is Gretna and Gretna Green.

The town of Gretna was mostly built to house workers at a huge World War One munitions factory, which spread for 9 miles along the Solway. The fence of the site still dominates the coast walk Westward, but I walked North into Gretna Green. It’s all about weddings.

“Gretna Green is one of the world's most popular wedding destinations; hosting over 5000 weddings each year or one of every six Scottish weddings. Gretna's famous runaway marriages began in 1753 when an Act of Parliament, Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act, was passed in England, which stated that if both parties to a marriage were not at least 21 years old, then consent to the marriage had to be given by the parents. This Act did not apply in Scotland, where it was possible for boys to get married at 14 and girls at 12 years old with or without parental consent, see Marriage in Scotland. Since 1929 both parties have had to be at least 16 years old but there is still no consent needed. In England and Wales the ages are now 16 with consent and 18 without. Before these changes occurred, many elopers fled England, and the first Scottish village they encountered was Gretna Green. The Old Blacksmith's shop, built around 1712, and Gretna Hall Blacksmith's Shop (1710) became, in popular folklore at least, the focal point for the marriage trade. The Old Blacksmith's opened to the public as a visitor attraction as early as 1887. The local blacksmith and his anvil have become the lasting symbols of Gretna Green weddings. Scottish law allowed for 'irregular marriages', meaning that if a declaration was made before two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. The blacksmiths in Gretna became known as 'anvil priests'. Gretna's two Blacksmiths' shops and countless inns and smallholding became the backdrops for hundreds of thousands of weddings” (Wikipedia).

And despite the fact that the rights of the local blacksmith to marry people were removed in 1940, the place is littered with “authentic” and “original” places to get married. Everyone staying at my b&b was going to weddings, except me (I was careful), and all the staff at the hotel where I had my supper were waiting anxiously because “the wedding” was running late. Very strange.