Scremerston is a village in Northumberland, England. The village lies on the North Sea coast just under south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and from the Anglo-Scottish border. It is adjacent to the A1, providing access to Newcastle upon Tyne to the south, and to Edinburgh to the north.
Scremerston encompasses a number of satellite settlements scattered between the A1 and the coastline at Cocklawburn Beach. These include Borwell, Heatherytops, Inlandpasture, Redhouse, Scremerston Town Farm and Seahouse. Surviving miners' cottages include Restoration Cottages, Deputy Row and Derwentwater Terrace. Scremerston Hill farm and cottages lie to the south, but have been largely cut off from the village by the busy A1 road.
Name Toponymy Scremerston has appeared in records at least as early as 1131. It has been written as Scrimestan, Scremerestone, Scremeston, Skremerstone, Screymerston and Scrymmerstone, making it a difficult name to interpret precisely. The first element is most likely a personal name such as Skirmer or Skurmer from the Old French escrimeur meaning "fencer" or the Old Norse personal name Skraema. The second element probably refers to either the Old English stán meaning rock or stone or the Old English tūn meaning an enclosure, farmstead or village. Hence a variation of Skrimer's boundary-stone, Skrimer's farm, Skraema's Stone, Skraema's Farm, etc.
Richardson's Stead Prior to the 1957 edition, the village appeared on Ordnance Survey maps as 'Richardson's Stead', with 'Scremerston' referring to the wider area and a specific settlement just under south, now known as Scremerston Town Farm. Naturalist George Johnston, in his 1829 publication Flora of Berwick-upon-Tweed, refers to 'Richardson's-stead' and 'Scrammerston' as distinct places between which common barberry can be found. By the turn of the 20th century there was ambiguity, as typified by author and illustrator Charles George Harper when describing his journey up the Great North Road (the forerunner of the current A1) first published in 1901: "Always upwards, it passes collieries, the 'Cat' inn, and the hamlet of Richardson's Stead or Scremerston, whence, arrived at the summit of Scremerston Hill, the way down into Tweedmouth and across the Tweed into Berwick is clear."
History
Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements
Evidence of habitation during this period is scarce but not insignificant, and includes both domestic pottery and burial sites. Two cists were found in Scremerston about north-west of Borewell, one in 1922 the other in 1948. The cists had been inserted at the south end of a low, sandy ridge. The first cist, made of thin sandstone slabs, measured square and contained a female skull, fragments of a beaker and two flints. The second cist was of similar size and contained two beakers which are held at the Great North Museum: Hancock.
A sherd of a Bronze Age food urn was found at Scremerston Hill in 1925 and is held by National Museums Scotland.
The Iron Age and Roman-British settlements
A multivallate fort is recorded on the cliffline north of Seahouse. Three arcs of ditch enclose an area about 150m across. The site is dissected by a railway line and the eastern end has not been identified and has most likely been lost to erosion of the cliff. About 150m to the west of the fort lies a linear feature running north–south for 400m while 80m further west a similar feature runs parallel for nearly 500m. These have been interpreted as the north–south axes of a field system associated with the site.
A possible ring ditch and two ditches measuring approximately 8 metres by 6 metres considered to be of prehistoric/Roman origins lie 100m north-west of the Spittal Chain Low radar site. Both of these sites are documented on aerial photographs of crop markings. Two much larger prehistoric double ditched curvilinear enclosures are visible as cropmarks on air photographs about 750m to the east of Scremerston Town Farm. Each has inner ditches of over 50m in diameter.
The Devil's Causeway is a Roman road extending across Northumberland from Portgate on Hadrian's Wall to Scremerston, disappearing just over before reaching the River Tweed. The route passes to the west of the Scremerston church, with all traces disappearing to the north east at Heathery Tops. The route was mapped during a three-year survey by Henry Maclauchlan, published in 1864. It has been suggested that the road's distinctive structure was designed for cavalry patrols rather than pedestrians or commerce, although no definitive evidence of Roman military structures has been found in the Tweedmouth area.
In 1980, a Romano-British settlement was excavated at Doubstead Field, 180m south of Scremerston village and about 90m west of the disused colliery railway. The site was later destroyed by the re-routing of the A1. During the excavation, traces of timber roundhouses were discovered in a rectilinear ditched enclosure, along with 130 sherds of pottery, various stone items, a hinged metal bracelet, a metal brooch, a spiral finger ring, fragments of glass bangles and skeletal remains of ox and horse. The site was dated to the late first or second century.
Medieval settlements and border wars Scremerston is mentioned as the home of Robert De Tughale (Tuggal), sheriff of Berwick from 1333 to 1337. Tughale, in a petition to King Edward III in around 1335, requests that the King grant to him a tenement in the Shambles of Berwick due to his losses at the hands of the Scots. He states that his house at Scremerston had been burnt and his cattle taken by the Scots, his grain crop destroyed by the king's army. This was a particularly violent period in the area, with Berwick having been under siege by the English for four months and finally captured in 1333 when the surrounding area was noted to have been widely pillaged by Edward's army. Scremerston was destroyed again by the Scots in 1386.
Scremerston Town Farm, which is marked as "Scremerston" on many maps until the mid-20th century, was once the site of a larger medieval settlement and the remains of the earthworks and medieval ridge and furrow ploughing can still be seen. These are most prominent on the pasture between the farm and Doupster Burn to the north. Mid-16th century records mention that the village had a stone tower and enclosure, while 17th century records describe 40 cottages. Early maps show that they were arranged in two rows along a road running from east to west. The village began to shrink in the 18th century, with many of the remaining cottages used as agricultural buildings.Dixon, P.J., 1984. The Deserted Medieval Villages of North Northumberland, vol.2. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Wales, 520-2
The remains of ridge and furrow ploughing is also evident adjacent to Inlandpasture, suggesting this largely Georgian farmyard was built over an older settlement.
Civil War, Treason and Greenwich Hospital During the English Civil War (1642–1651), land seized from Royalists by Parliament's 'Sequestration Committee' could be 'compounded' – returned on payment of a fine. Documents of the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents showed that lands around Scremerston, including the village and Scremerston Colliery, were taken from William Fenwick for recusancy and were included in an Act of Parliament to be sold off.
Scremerston village, colliery and surrounding lands instead passed on to the Radclyffe family (also recorded as Radcliff, Radclyff and Radcliffe) by marriage. The Radclyffes were made Earls of Derwentwater (hence Derwentwater Terrace) in 1688 by James II, but following a Jacobite rebellion James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater was beheaded for treason at Tower Hill in 1716. On the death of his son in 1731, the estate was forfeited and granted to the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital in 1735, who retain most of the estate to this day.
Industrialisation
During the 18th and 19th centuries Scremerston experienced rapid and extensive industrialisation, largely due to the accessibility of raw materials such as coal, stone and clay.
Scremerston Mill was a water-powered mill designed by renowned Leeds civil engineer John Smeaton in 1776. It was sited just north of Seahouse and the ruins are still visible. The corn mill was unique for having its own small harbour and an unusual horizontal "norse" water wheel. The mill is described in Rees's Cyclopædia as having a wheel in diameter with 12 "ladles" or concave paddles in diameter. The wheel's axle rose up to a cog which could turn one of two sets of grindstones. The larger set would turn 65 revolutions per minute while smaller set could turn at 88 revolutions a minute, and the mill was capable of grinding of corn an hour.
Hud's Head quarry, also known as Pier Quarry, lies between Hud's Head and The Skipper rock formation on the shoreline at the foot of the Scremerston Incline railway. It was active between 1808 and 1825 and was the source of the stone for Berwick Pier. The first stone of the pier was laid in 1810 and it was completed in 1826.
Scremerston was a local centre for coal mining from at least the 17th century. Records of the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents of 1650-52 show a colliery existed in Scremerston, although it had "drowned" and was "now useless to Berwick garrison". Following the village, colliery and surrounding lands passing to Greenwich Hospital in 1735, Nicholas Walton wrote to William Corbett, then secretary to the Greenwich Hospital reporting that the coal seam at Scremerston had been on fire for a number of years and, due to an increase in workings, a subsequent "admitting of Aire, has Increased, & is at present to that degree as to lay the workmen off work and unless some expedient is found the Collierys will inevitably be destroyed." A plan was described to block the levels and flood the mine to save it. Jack Tar Pit (also known as Scremerston New Winning, Scremerston Old Colliery and Greenwich Colliery) was sunk in 1840 by Robert Johnson and continued work until 1878. The site still includes a largely intact engine house and pumping engine house, both grade II listed buildings. The coal seams beneath Scremerston were intensively mined and four other major pits in the village were Scremerston Colliery, Engine Pit, Rise Pit and Restoration Pit.
A number of lime kilns operated along the Scremerston coastline. A lime works sat at each end of Cocklawburn Beach, while another operated from Cuddy's cove just north of Seahouse. They supported around 190 people in now vanished coastal communities. The kilns included an infrastructure of wagonways, blacksmiths and steam engines. Limestone was quarried on site and the quicklime was produced using coal mined in nearby collieries in Scremerston village. The lime works was served by two horse-drawn railways which operated into the 20th century, and connected with the mainline railway via a dedicated lime depot near Scremerston railway station.
Scremerston's earliest documented brick and tile works was on the cliff-top site of the later Sandbank ( Sea Side) Limeworks, operating between the early and mid-19th Century and was known as Sea Side Brick and Tile Works. Scremerston Brick and Tile Works operated between 1850-1943, by Carr & Company from 1855, Shoreswood & Scremerston Coal Company from 1873 and Scremerston Coal Company from 1894 but closing soon after. In the mid-1930s, Hartley Main Collieries built new works beside the derelict works with four large 'Newcastle' kilns producing bricks marked SMC (Scremerston Main Colliery), but this was short-lived and the brick works closed with the colliery in 1943. Borewell Tileworks appears on maps contemporaneously with Scremerston Brick and Tile Works in a survey of 1860 but had disappeared by 1898.