Lamberton, Berwickshire

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Lamberton is a hilly ancient parish and former landed estate in Berwickshire, Scotland, its eastern boundary being the North Sea. It is four miles north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and is the first Scottish parish reached after crossing the border from England on the Great North Road (today the A1).

Contents

[edit] Original family

Adam de Lamberton gave a charter of a third part of his land of Lamberton to his grandson, Galfrido de Hasswell between 1190 and 1200 [1].

In the National Archives of Scotland (RH1/2/59) there is a charter of Sir Peter de Mordington, knt., son of the deceased Sir William de Mordington, as superior, in favour of Simon de Baddeby of certain lands in Lamberton, dated 1270. A William de Lamberton was superior c1318[2].

[edit] Barony

Some records give Lamberton as a feudal barony; others that it became part of the vast barony assigned to Coldingham Priory. (It may be partly both).

[edit] Renton family

A charter (RH1/2/98) dated November 21, 1325 of Agnes de Mordington, in favour of John de Raynton, thereafter designated as "of Lamberton", appears to herald the long possession of Lamberton by this family, descendants of the ancient foresters of Coldingham Priory. "Robert de Renton, Lord of Lamberton" was in possession in 1407 [3]. In 1632 David Renton of Billie held "the forty husbandlands (1040 acres) of Lambertoun within the lordship of Coldingham" [4].

By the 18th century the Rentons had passed their ancient estate of Billie to the Homes, but retained Lamberton. The Rentons of Lamberton were in the early 19th century represented by Alexander Renton of Lamberton (d. before March 1831), who was served his father's heir in the lands and mains of Lamberton in 1774, and whose only child, a daughter Susanna, married Robert Campbell, a Colonel in the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot. Their son, Charles Frederick (1819 - 1891), Colonel in the 87th Regiment of Foot, hyphenated his surname. The Campbell-Rentons of Lamberton, and, later, Mordington House, also failed in the male line with the death in 1948 of Robert Charles Campbell-Renton.

[edit] Royal connection

The now ruined Lamberton Kirk was the church where, in July 1503, Margaret Tudor the daughter of King Henry VII of England, met the representatives of King James IV of Scotland (and traditionally is said to have married him by proxy), thus leading to the eventual succession of James VI to the English throne. Only ruins of the nave and chancel remain, as the burial-place of the Rentons of Lamberton [5].

[edit] Irregular marriages

The now demolished Old Toll House at Lamberton, situated just across the border in Scotland, was notorious for its irregular marriages. From 1798 to 1858 keepers of the Toll, as well as questionable men-of-the-cloth used to marry couples in the same fashion as at the more familiar Gretna Green. The site of the house is marked by a plaque [6].

[edit] Smallholdings

Lamberton today consists largely of smallholdings [7] compulsorily purchased, under an Act of Parliament, from the last Campbell-Renton laird, to provide a living for soldiers returning from The Great War. However, the land was not suited to crops, the holdings were too small for anything other than subsistance living, and today the original holdings are generally merged with others to make larger farms. Some modern house-building activity has taken place over the past decade along the original A1 (now bypassed). There is no town or village, as such, just scattered housing, with spectacular views over the North Sea.

[edit] Local government

The regional authority today is the Scottish Borders Council, based some 50 miles to the west at Newtown St. Boswells, Roxburghshire. The parish also returns three elected councillors to the Foulden Mordington & Lamberton Community Council, similar to an English parish council, whose meetings rotate between Foulden Village Hall, and Lamberton Hall.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Historic Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of Colonel David Milne Home of Wedderburn Castle, N.B., London, 1902: 223
  2. ^ Historic Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of Colonel David Milne Home of Wedderburn Castle, N.B., London, 1902: 226
  3. ^ Historic Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of Colonel David Milne Home of Wedderburn Castle, N.B., London, 1902: 227
  4. ^ Historic Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of Colonel David Milne Home of Wedderburn Castle, N.B., London, 1902: 200
  5. ^ Strang, Borders and Berwick: 20
  6. ^ Steven, Alexander C.A., The Story of Lamberton Toll, 1933
  7. ^ Williams, John, editor, Smallholding Memories, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 2000

[edit] References

  • The Scottish Nation, by William Anderson, Edinburgh, 1870, volume 2, pps: 338-9.
  • A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland, by Sir Bernard Burke, C.B.,LL.D., Ulster King of Arms, Ninth Edition, London, 1898, p.1251.
  • Borders and Berwick, by Charles A Strang, Rutland Press, 1994. ISBN 1-873190-10-7
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