Visiting Berwick Upon Tweed ( B.U.T.) was another challenge for me. It was around 63 miles of a journey i have to make. And yes again, i did it by Local Bus journeys. Which took me around 3 hours. I herd about this town from one of my friend and its very next to the Scottish border. So , as i always do whenever i had free time or find some opportunity i just devote myself to the beauty of The UK. You all may know about Berwick Upon Tweed, but lets know a little bit about it again. Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland. It is actually at the mouth of lovely rive ” River Tweed ( 97 miles) “. It is very strange the word “Tweed” means – A thick woolen often knobbly clothes produced originally in Scotland. Berwick is an Anglo-Saxon Settlement, which was annexed by England in the 10th century. One of my friend from Worcester told me people used to say UK is consists of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Berwick. Probably it was the most important town long time ago. The people of the Berwick often have mixed Anglo- Scottish families and claim to be neither English nor Scottish, But simply ” Berwickers”. Just learned from a book Berwick has survived 400 years (Four Hundred years) border wars with Scotland. I think it did have the longest border war in English history. Berwick means ” barley village” . I was bit surprised when i learn about it.
I went to revisit to Berwick with my friend from Worcester. Watch the full birds eye view of berwick
My mom used to feed me barely when I was little. The wonder that barely originated was from ” Berwick Upon Tweed”! ? let’s talk about the plan or how did I land myself there. As it is a long journey, as usual, you might need to make up a bit plan and arrangements before you start. A sunny day or good weather is a plus point always to explore on long journeys. There is a bus from Newcastle Haymarket to Berwick. If you start around 8 am in the morning it’s going to be better and will allow you plenty of time to explore. Bus X15 will proudly board you in if you buy bus pass for a day or if you have a CT pass or student pass. You will get a student discount if you have a student id card with you. will cost you around £8-£10 for all day bus pass or day return. There is always a severe chance to feel tired or dizzy as its a long journey by bus. So it will be great if you have plenty of food, water, an orange or any fruits you like. If you are not a fruit lover you can always drink fruit flavor drinks or mint favour chewing gum or ginger. by the time you will reach in Berwick it will be around 12 pm. First thing i did , i went to near the rail station and next to the station there is a lovely little park where you can see the ” Royal border Bridge” very close. If you fancy to climb the hills then you can also go for a walk in the riverside walk.
There is a little boat trip which needs to be pre-booked from the old Berwick bridge ( Bridge End bridge) side. Royal Border bridge is worth to see as it was built in 1850s and cost £253000 that time. It was opened by HM Queen Victoria. I did not go for a boat trip or hike as my plan was to see the most of Berwick with in 3 hours of time and of course money matters. Then i had a walk through the Town centre and saw the old Town Hall (built in 1754) . It is a nice little town centre and couple of charity shop worth to visit. Then i walked towards the south of town hall and found a lovely light house & Pier, Little beach, Berwick Fortifications ( The Elizabethan ramparts, 1558), Lily Pond and yes the distance view of Holy Island from the pier. I have spent some time there and had my food. Nice sandy beach where i found my Souvenir for the visit. It was a Shell. the biggest shell i had ever found in the seaside. Around 2 and half inch big.
Pictures are in the Travel pictures folder. To be added while you will be going from Newcastle to Berwick you will see lots of little villages from the bus. And again its a double-decker bus. So, I tried to be clever to climb onto the top and front seat of the bus. The bus also passes by the HMP ( Prison in South Bromhill) , so i had a chance to see the prison area a little bit. Bus will pass through North Togston, Amble ( A nice town), Workworth & Workworth Castle, Birling, Hipsburn ( Does Hips gets burned there? A big question) , Alnwick, Denwick, Warenford, Haggerston, Scremerston, Tweedmouth and Berwick. I used to pronounce Alnwick ( Allen wick), which i have recently learned is the wrong pronunciation.
The next thing i have found out while i was walking through the river walk was abandoned ” Ice house- Cold Storage” 1790. It was the largest Icehouse in Berwick. Berwick was very famous for Salmon Trading at that time. So, Packing Salmon on ice ( originally which was a Chinese Idea) would increase the price of Salmon fish and easy to transport to the London Market. Most winter was cold enough to produce ice locally and put them in the ice house and also to store the late summer Salmon. fresh fish used to cost 1 Shilling a pound (10p per kilo), wow!! On my way back i took the bus from Berwick and I arrived around 7 pm in Newcastle.
That was my little journey by bus from Newcastle. If there is any comments and suggestion, please do write to me. Pictures of the journey are available on the Travel folder called ” Newcastle- Berwick” Thanks everyone.
