Berwick-upon-Tweed, United Kingdom Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

Before the union of the English and Scottish crowns in 1603, BERWICK-UPON-TWEED , some twelve miles north of Holy Island, was the quintessential frontier town, changing hands no fewer than fourteen times between 1174 and 1482, when the Scots finally ceded the stronghold to the English. Interminable cross-border warfare ruined Berwick's economy, turning the prosperous Scottish port of the thirteenth century into an impoverished garrison town, which the English forcibly cut off from its natural trading hinterland up the River Tweed. By the late sixteenth century, Berwick's fortifications were in … more »