Greenlaw - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Greenlaw is a small town situated in the foothills of the Lammermuir Hills

Lammermuir Hills

The Lammermuir Hills, usually simply called the Lammermuirs , in southern Scotland, form a natural boundary between Lothian and the Scottish Borders....

on Blackadder Water

Blackadder Water

Blackadder Water is a river in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, forming part of the River Tweed system.Rising in the Harecleugh Forest plantation just south of the Twin Law cairns, north of the village of Westruther. The headwaters of the Blackadder join with those of the...

at the junction of the A697 and the A6105 in the Scottish Borders

Scottish Borders

The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...

area of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Greenlaw was first made the county town

County town

A county town is a county's administrative centre in the United Kingdom or Ireland. County towns are usually the location of administrative or judicial functions, or established over time as the de facto main town of a county. The concept of a county town eventually became detached from its...

of Berwickshire

Berwickshire

Berwickshire or the County of Berwick is a registration county, a committee area of the Scottish Borders Council, and a lieutenancy area of Scotland, on the border with England. The town after which it is named—Berwick-upon-Tweed—was lost by Scotland to England in 1482...

in 1596, and was the first town to take on this role since the English took Berwick in 1482. At that time, Greenlaw was situated about a mile south of the present village, atop a hill - the 'Green Law'. This area is now known as Old Greenlaw.

In 1661 County Town status was lost to Duns

Duns

Duns is the county town of the historic county of Berwickshire, within the Scottish Borders.-Early history:Duns law, the original site of the town of Duns, has the remains of an Iron Age hillfort at its summit...

by an Act of Parliament. But when Patrick, Earl of Marchmont attained the barony of Greenlaw in the 1670’s, he made it his business to restore what he saw as the rights and privileges that came with the barony. In 1696 he succeeded: an Act of Parliament was passed, laying down in statute that the town of Greenlaw should be the Head Burgh of Berwickshire. It was around this time that the Greenlaw of the present day was founded.

However, attempts were made in 1739, 1790 and 1810 to take the rights and privileges from Greenlaw and make Duns County Town once more. Though unsuccessful in their primary aim, the grounds were laid for an 1853 Act authorising Sheriff and Commissary Courts to be held at Duns. This was the beginning of the end for Greenlaw as a County Town. Though little came of a renewed attempt in 1889, office buildings and police cells were built in Duns to prepare for the desired take-over. Finally, in 1903, a bill first introduced by the Secretary for Scotland in 1900 was passed, causing Greenlaw to lose its status the following year as County Town of Berwickshire once and for all.

Greenlaw's impressive town hall, completed in 1831, is a listed building from its county town era and was one of the buildings shortlisted in the 2006 BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

television series Restoration Village
Restoration (TV series)
Restoration, Restoration, Restoration is a set of BBC television series where viewers decided on which listed building that was in immediate need of remedial works was to win a grant from Heritage Lottery Fund...

. Though it did not win in its particular category, the interest created led to the gift of private money and the building was restored in 2010.

There is also a fine church, built in 1675, on earlier foundations. The corbie step gables preserve a feature of the architecture of that period. The church was expanded during the eighteenth century and completed in its present form around 1855.

After Greenlaw became County Town in 1696 the Church Tower was planned as a Tolbooth or Prison and was completed by 1712. Its style was adapted to present the appearance of a Church Tower. It is unique in structure – square rising to a height of 60ft and ending in a corballed parapet from which an 18ft steeple rises. The old iron gate or yett is the original one of 1712. A Court House also completed in 1712 stood on the west side of the tower, therefore by 1712 there stood by the side of the Church, a Tolbooth and Court House, hence the rhyme:

“ Here stands the Gospel and the Law
Wi Hells Hole atween the twa”

A few years later (1828-31) the Town Hall was erected and the Court House was demolished.

A new Jail was built in the town in 1824. This was used throughout the Victorian period but was taken out of use in the 20th century and demolished in the 1960s. The Jail Keepers house survives having been used for a number of years as the local police station. It is now a private house. The land where the prison stood has been converted into an organic smallholding.

Greenlaw has two small pubs, The Cross Keys and The Blackadder hotel.

Shops include the Village Stores, Blackadder Mini-market, Romanes pharmacy and Waldie's butchers. The Post Office closed in 2010 and Greenlaw is now served by a mobile post office. There is also a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, though this only opens on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Other businesses include a motor repair garage, builders, organic vegetable growers, a candle makers and a small embroidery factory.

Greenlaw has a primary school. Older children attend the High School in Duns.

Greenlaw Castle was a manor house located to the east of the town. It was owned by a branch of the Home family, including the surgeon Robert Boyne Home (1713–1786), father of Sir Everard Home

Everard Home

Sir Everard Home, 1st Baronet FRS was a British physician.Home was born in Kingston-upon-Hull and educated at Westminster School. He gained a schoalrship to Trinity College, Cambridge, but decided instead to become a pupil of his brother-in-law, John Hunter, at St. George's Hospital...

and Anne Hunter

Anne Hunter

Anne Hunter was the wife of the celebrated surgeon John Hunter, and a minor poet. She is mostly remembered now for the texts to at least nine of Joseph Haydn's 14 songs in English. Their relationship during Haydn's stay is ambiguous, though at the time she was a widow...

. It ceased to be used as a laird

Laird

A Laird is a member of the gentry and is a heritable title in Scotland. In the non-peerage table of precedence, a Laird ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire.-Etymology:...

's house in 1729, and was demolished around 1820.

Places nearby include Eccles

Eccles, Scottish Borders

thumbEccles is a village and agricultural parish near Kelso in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. The village is conjoined with Birgham and Leitholm...

, Legerwood

Legerwood

Legerwood is a village by the Eden Water, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, near Lauder, near the Southern Upland Way.Legerwood Kirk is outside the village and has been present there since at least 1127....

, Gordon, Westruther

Westruther

Westruther is a village on the B6468, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, on the lower slopes of the Lammermuir Hills, in the former Berwickshire. The largest town nearby is Gordon....

, Polwarth

Polwarth, Scottish Borders

Polwarth is a village and parish in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. It is located at , between Greenlaw and Duns, in the former county of Berwickshire....

, Fogo

Fogo

Fogo may refer to:* Fogo, Cape Verde** Mount Fogo* Fogo, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada** Fogo Aerodrome* Fogo, Scottish Borders, a village in Berwickshire, Scotland** Fogo Priory, a religious house of the above settlement...

, Leitholm

Leitholm

Leitholm is a village in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, north-west of Coldstream, in the former county of Berwickshire.Other places nearby include the Crosshall cross, Duns, Eccles, Ednam, Fogo, Greenlaw, Hume Castle, Polwarth, Westruther....

and Duns

Duns

External links

RCAHMS: Burgh: Greenlaw

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