GRETNA GREEN

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 29 January 1927, Page 11

GRETNA GREEN

GRETNA GREEN at once suggests romance, and I was not disapopinted (says _ . a writer abroad) when darkness and a

storm overtook me while journeying from Glasgow to Carlisle, and caused me to seek shelter in this delightful border village. The soft green hills and the gentle slopes are in such pleasing contrast to the Eastern Scottish border, where the Cheviots frown with inhospitable disdain. Who does not recall the name of Gretna Green, where they tell us blushing English brides and eager swains stepped quickly from the chaise and hastened to the Scottish marriage altar with vengeance—in the shape of papa—hot upon their heels? So many of the runaway marriages have found their romantic way into the pages of English novels that this small village, within sound of the Solway’s constant tide, could not be other than charming, even had God not graced it with such rustic charm, and ancient Scots decreed it the limit of advancing foe.

It is true that in the years now gone stage drivers, urged on by the gold and the zeal of fiery lovers, have thundered across the tiny but historic Sark and, horses all a-foam, drawn up outside the old tollbar, where the, marriage was performed. It is equally true that many of these marriages were performed and held legal The old tollhouse still stands partly obscured by its rustic hedge, for it is a low, single-storied structure, following closely the ugly, scanty lines of Scottish village architecture. It bears no sign of its former glory; it blazons forth no tourist sign bidding stray sixpences to its doorwav.

But half a mile away, in the tiny village itself, a great weather-beaten sign at the crossroads says with somewhat irritating showmanship: “To the Old Blacksmith’s Shop.” There cannot be more than about sixty or seventy houses in all Gretna Green, so it is easy to find the old blacksmith’s shop, even were it not loudly plastered with that announcement. Your first feeling is one of disappointment, for the

SCENE OF RASH ROMANCES

THE TOLLBAR AND SMITHY

famous old blacksmith's shop carries its age with debonair youth. Its thatch consists 01 beastly, well-regulated twentieth-century tiles, which may keep the weather out, but certainly not let romance in. Its efficiently whitewashed front obviously does not hide the wrinkles and scares of time. Can this be the scene of romantic runaway marriages. It is not! The old blacksmith’s shop is, indeed the greatest hoax in an island full of them. Almost anywhere around England will they. show you the inn where Dick Turpin leapt off the back of Black Bess. There are thousands of oak trees containing the single bullet which he once fired from his blunderbuss. But at least it must be remembered, on behalf of each of these enthusiastic Bonifaces, that Dick Turpin covered a wide field, and might have come within fifty miles of their inn. Nothing quite so generous can be said of the famous old blacksmith’s shop at Gretna Green which has been smart enough to get into every guide book and every reference to the village, for until twenty years ago not a single marriage under Scottish law was conducted there.

There is not a single resident in Gretna Green (excluding, for the sake of unanimity, the resident and the guide at the blacksmith’s shop), who is not emphatic on this point. Neither is there a single resident who does not condemn in hearty Scottish burr the legend that the blacksmith wedded erring couples. True it is that some twenty years ago the. .first marriage in the “famous old blacksmith’s shop” was conducted but that was done to give it a commercial start. Since then there have been many—they take place now and again to this day—but the chief industry is provided by the poor boob who is yanked there by charabanc to swallow the recitation of the ample guide.

By a clever exploitation of the passing traveller, the “famous old blacksmith’s shop” has struck pay-dirt to the value of a thousand pounds a year clear profit.