In photos: Berwick Bridge 400

As a means of crossing from one place to another, a bridge is an age-old symbol of connection. Celebrating its 400th anniversary in 2024, Berwick Bridge, spanning the River Tweed, therefore has several layers of significance – once a border crossing between nations, now a local landmark, but always an object, an image and an idea.

The first weekend in August saw a joyous two-day celebration in Berwick-upon-Tweed to mark 400 years since the first traffic passed across Berwick Bridge. Organised by Berwick Bridge 400, a voluntary committee of local enthusiasts, and supported by Connecting Threads, Creative Berwick and Berwick Archives, the weekend offered a moment for a whole host of people, Berwick locals and visitors alike, to come together to mark this culturally and historically significant milestone. And the weather was nice! For the most part.

An amazing range of activities took place across the weekend on both sides of the River Tweed. In Berwick, in addition to a wealth of stands and stalls, the packed programme included costumed street performances from Maltings Youth Theatre, history walks with Berwick archivist Linda Bankier, traditional music courtesy of the Spittal Pipers, and demonstrations from local stonemason Richard Swan. In Tweedmouth, West End Green reverberated gently to the sounds of Berwick Baroque Players, Salmon City Blues Band, Shindiggers Drumming Group and many others.

As part of the celebrations, Connecting Threads pitched our gazebos in Queen’s Garden to run a series of artist-led workshops across the weekend.

Painting (with) Berwick Bridge
Annie Lord, our artist in residence for the Lower Tweed, was on hand to chat about her ongoing archival research into the construction of Berwick Bridge and to encourage people to try their hand at making sketches of the bridge.

Annie was appointed back in May and since then she has spent time in Berwick-upon-Tweed researching some of the material and labour histories associated with the construction of Berwick Bridge, meeting local people and making work in response.

Annie has recently developed a series of paints that she has made herself by crumbling down pieces of sandstone from the bridge itself. Over the weekend, hundreds of people got to create their own visions of the bridge using this handmade paint, held quite beautifully in an array of limpet shells. It was a joyous sight each morning to see Queen’s Garden filled with people of all ages, staring intently at the bridge, or heads down, quietly sketching away.

Making paper
Each afternoon, artist Lucy Baxandall (who runs Tidekettle Paper in Berwick) led a series of workshops showing people how to make their own paper using foraged local ingredients, mixed with water from the Tweed. These included mixed grass seeds and horsetail from a nearby golf course, thistledown, hawksbeard and yarrow, cooked in bicarbonate of soda to reduce the acidity.

Lucy first made a base solution using recycled office paper and water, before showing people how to form the paper using a mould and deckle, decorate using any of the foraged plant matter, press and then dry to form beautiful textured sheets of handmade paper, which people could take away with them at the end of each workshop.

Gyotaku – printing fish
Gyotaku is a traditional Japanese fish printing technique that dates back to the 1800s: the word itself comes from ‘gyo’ (fish) and ‘taku’ (impression). A form of nature printing, gyotaku involves using the actual fish as a printing plate – which means you cover it all over with ink (in this case, squid ink to stick with the rivery theme) before pressing carefully onto fine paper to create the image.

Over the Berwick Bridge 400 weekend, these creative fish printing sessions were led by artist Claire Beattie, alongside Amy-Jo Kearton and Becki Cooper from Berwick Museum and Art Gallery.

About Berwick Bridge
Official histories of Berwick Bridge tend to focus on its royal origins. The story goes that the bridge was built following orders issued by King James VI of Scotland. It’s said that he was dismayed by the old wooden bridge he had to cross on his way to London to be crowned James I of England.

Construction of Berwick Bridge began in 1610 using red sandstone from a nearby quarry at Tweedmouth. In the first year 170 workers were involved in the build. After design alterations, flooding and rising costs, the bridge finally opened to traffic in 1624.

Today, Berwick Bridge is a Grade I-listed building and a scheduled monument. It is also accompanied by two more recent additions: the nineteenth-century Royal Border railway viaduct and the concrete Royal Tweed Bridge, built in the 1920s.