Musings from the Merse
Monday, August 24, 2009
Said Tweed to Till 'Pxxx Off'
Someone on the Today Programme commenting on the BBC series 'Rivers' informed the nation that unlike England and Wales canoeists in Scotland had the 'right to roam' in any bit of water they wanted to (not the reed bed sewage plant in Hutton, one fancies) This may be the formal legal position but I suspect the Tweed Commissioners and the riverine Lairds (same sort of creature once the Tweed is fully within Scotland)might have other notions in the interests of the protection of precious fishing. I don't see His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch bothering with legal niceties if a horde of canoeists entered his territorial waters of the river-extensive as it is. Nor would the Tweed Commissioners have truck with such yobs if they dared come mob handed.
One does see the odd canoeist in the Paxton House reach where the river still forms the border between Alba and Albion nd I have actually seen a small Hovercraft on the Tweed, launched from below Paxton House (see image)
but only once.
I suspect the launch was unauthorised, possibly from sheer ignorance of the wrath likely to come, and doubtless the guys with the Barbour Jackets, Green wellies and double barreled Purdeys later called on the skipper for a bit of a talking to.
The Tweed can be very nasty in a spate but apparently the Till has the killer reputation as this ditty, composed shortly after the battle of Flodden, of blessed memory, points out:
Said Tweed to Till,
What gars ye rin sae still?
Said Till to Tweed,
Though ye rin wi' speed,
And I rin slaw,
For every ane that ye droon
I droon twa!"
Canoeists, you have been warned
Labels: Canoeists, right to roan, the Till, Tweed
Friday, May 09, 2008
Fishwick Kirk I Presume?
Indeed yes. At last. After several failed attempts-unfriendly natives and marauding beasts, Huttonian and the wife, led by valiant Sherpa, penetrated the bandit country of the riverine Tweed lower valley to reach the ruins of Fishwick Kirk, where human feet have rarely tread in recent years. This was only achievable by out flanking guard cows protecting the obvious approach from the West while we snuck in from the East.(See image of the savage beasts-no doubt a bull lurking nearby-on Death-by-Coo Hill)The church is obscured by trees from every angle and is only just visible from the northern side when you are right on top of it. The main structure-a mortuary chapel built in the 1830s on the site of a much older church-legible tombstones date from the 17th century. The earliest on an inventory made in 1970 is 1661. The structure, apart from the roof tiling where the timbers are mostly intact is in surprisingly good nick but Vandals (or possibly Goths) have removed brass, glass and no doubt looted the vaults as well.The door was being used as a ramp (by earlier looters?) and the working party aka Sherpa, put it inside the church-image show it propped up outside the entrance
To paraphrase Dr Johnson's description of his visit to the Giant's Causeway:
Worth Seeing. Worth Going to see
But take food, warm clothing (it was 68f yesterday), machetes, midge repellent, dock leaves-the nettles are gigantic, GPS, small arms, stun grenades, flak jackets, and a cell phone. Help would be slow to reach you. So take care
(Click on the images for fine detail)
Labels: Fishwick Kirk, Low Flying Merse, Tweed
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Dr Johnston is supposed to have claimed that a Scotsman's favourite sight was the road to England-given how many sons of Alba had found fame and fortune 'south of the Border down Wimbledon way'. Here is lush opulent Northumbria photographed from lush opulent Paxton House. To make a quick getaway to a life of liberty and the pursuit of happiness would mean getting a bit damp as the border runs down the middle of the Tweed at this point. A small price to pay, perhaps, for escaping the heavy flabby hand of a Salmond or a Sturgeon (no fishing puns intended
Sunday, February 10, 2008
This stunning image is from a flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/scottishborders/pool/
courtesy of Borderscot. It is the English Scottish border at subrise-look at largest version t o achieve full effect. Could not have been taken this morning with high pressure fog limiting visibilty to a few yards.
Border Scot describes his picture thus:
I took just before xmas on the bridge over the
Tweed at Norham. on the way down to Tilmouth p Park where i
was working you couldnt see the bridge for mist but on
returning the sun had burned some of it away leaving a
glorious sight,mist,water,sunlight and few salmon boats
resting on the water
courtesy of Borderscot. It is the English Scottish border at subrise-look at largest version t o achieve full effect. Could not have been taken this morning with high pressure fog limiting visibilty to a few yards.
Border Scot describes his picture thus:
I took just before xmas on the bridge over the
Tweed at Norham. on the way down to Tilmouth p Park where i
was working you couldnt see the bridge for mist but on
returning the sun had burned some of it away leaving a
glorious sight,mist,water,sunlight and few salmon boats
resting on the water
Labels: Merse Sunrises, The Border, Tweed
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Fishwick Church-the search continues
Following a bloggee's clue we set off once more down the Fishwick Cul de Sac Blackspot in search of the remains of Fishwick Church. They are remarkably elusive and are presumably in the dense vegetation pictured above. The copse is surrounded by a barbed wired fence-WW2 surplus from Stalag XIV or XV and the nettles are so high that further exploration will have to wait until Autumn. But it was good to see for the first time the (presumably) Tweedhill Fisheries' Tweed side Bothy/Winebar and there were even fishermen in evidence parked beside it having, presumably, found no room in the official car park. A gaggle of geese had found refuge in the shallows and were being noisily provocative to a herd of cows who trying to emigrate from Scotand to England (or vice versa) had found themselves stranded on an island rather nearer to Scotland than England but did not seem too concerned.
Only jarring note to mar a quiet bucolic idyll was provided by English Yuff on the Horncliffe bank with their motor bikes. Presumably banned from the peaceful village streets they were doing their things on the river bank-click on image for the whole sordid spectacle. Try that on this side of the water it would be an ASBO and a forced appearnce in sack cloth and ashes at Fishwick Kirk.
If we could find it
Labels: Fishing, Fishwick Bypass, Tweed
