Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway
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Gretna (Gd: Greatna) is one of the few townships in the UK, as opposed to a town, or a village, which it is often referred to as. Nearby Gretna Green and to a lessor extent Grenta, being in Scotland just north of the border between Scotland and England, are historically linked to weddings because of the more liberal marriage laws in Scotland.
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[edit] Geography and administration
Gretna is in Dumfries and Galloway, in the south of Scotland, on the M74 near the border to England, and near the mouth of the River Esk.[1] The township is distinct from the smaller nearby village of Gretna Green, famous for marriages, which borders but is a separate area from Gretna proper. To the West in Scotland are Eastriggs (about 5 miles to the West) and Annan (about 8 miles to the West), both situated on the B721 and linked to the nearby A75.[1]
[edit] History
The township was notable for HM Factory, Gretna, codenamed Moorside, a huge cordite munitions factory built nearby on the shore of Solway Firth to supply ammunition to British forces during World War I. The factory, the biggest munitions factory ever built, stretched for nine miles from Eastriggs along the Solway coast as far as Longtown in England and two miles across. The factory took 10,000 navvies to build it, and employed 30,000 workers, mostly women. The workers mixed by hand a devil’s porridge of nitro-glycerine and guncotton into cordite paste, and loaded the extruded cordite strands into shell cases.
Gretna and Eastriggs were built to house the workforce, and many were accommodated nearby in Carlisle. When 5000 workers arrived back by train to Carlisle, one publican had 1000 whiskies lined up! The labourers and workers had such a reputation for drunkenness that Gretna and the surrounding area became one of the few places in the UK to come under the jurisdiction of the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 (DORA) passed by Lloyd George's government.
DORA was used by Winston Churchill in 1916 to bring the liquor industry, including Public Houses (Pubs) and Breweries, under Government control over a wide area, as far as Carlisle and Maryport. Spiritless Saturdays, buying anyone else a drink (shouting), and heaters and coolers (drinking beer and spirits in the same pub) were all banned. The pub landlords, now civil servants, were instructed to follow a disinterested management policy and not allow people to get drunk in the pubs. It was not until the early 1970s that the government enterprise was sold off.
[edit] Present day
Much of the local economy is driven by the marriage industry at Gretna Green, where, by some accounts, as many as one of every six Scottish weddings take place. Some marriages take place in Gretna itself, at the Register office in the centre of the township.
Gretna is also home of the Gretna Football Club of the Scottish Football League.
[edit] References
- Routledge, Gordon L. (1999).Gretna’s Secret War.
- devilsporridge.co.uk
- Ordnance Survey Landranger Map (number 85) - 1:50,000 scale (1.25 inches to 1 mile). ISBN 0-319-22685-9.
- Ordnance Survey Explorer Map (number 323) - 1:25,000 scale (2.5 inches to 1 mile)
[edit] External links
