Falling, Flowing Water: Sepia Saturday

 A Waterfall features on this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt photograph.  Cue for me to share a  travelogue on rivers in the Scottish Borders and Yorkshire Dales National Park in northern England. Enjoy!

Daughter c.1980 at   the wonderfully named “Wolfcleuchhead Waterfall” in Craik  Forest,  near the town of Hawick in the Scottish Borders. 

 One of the town’s many songs celebrates the meeting of the two rivers in Hawick.

"Where Slitrig dances doon the dell

To join the Teviot Water

There dwells auld Hawick's honest men

and Hawick's bright-eyed daughters."

The River Teviot in full spate

 A wintry Slitrig Water

 On a lot sunnier day, the familiar sight of the heron on the Slitrig

  

Flowing through the Scottish Borders is the 97 mile River Tweed  from its source in tthe Tweedsmuir Hills to the west of the region out to the North Sea at Berwick-upon- Tweed on the  Scottish-English Border.

                                                           Rivr Tweed at Melrose

 

 The Mertoun Bridge. built in 1837 over the River Tweed at at St. Boswells

A 40 foot drop of another off the beaten track waterfall of Stitchell Linn, near Kelso    Sometimes described as a "muckle trickle" - a contradictory term as "muckle" means "big" in  Scots, whilst "trickle"  indicates a small drop - still I like the way the phrase rolls off the tongue!  "Linn" means a rushing torrent of water

 

The Coldstream Bridge,opened in 1767  over the River Tweed  marks the border between Scotland and England. 

 Coldstream Bridge Tollhouse at the north end of the bridge,  was more than just the location for collecting taxes.  For it was akin to Gretna Green towards the west as  the location for a Scottish  "Irregular Marriage".  This was in the form of a verbal declaration by the couple  giving their consent  before witnesses and did not require a clergyman, but anyone who took on the role for a fee.  No notice, such as banns,  was required, no parental consent  and no residency requirement.  Such marriages were valid in Scotland but were increasingly frowned upon.  It became less  and less acceptable and in time was outlawed.

In the meantime, however, many English couples in particular,   eloped to places just across the Border,  to escape the stricter English marriage laws and obtain a quick, easy  and cheaper marriage.     

 It was on the bridge that Scottish bard  Robert Burns had his first glimpse of England, as marked  by a plaque. 

From one beautiful region to another – the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

                                             Husband at Aysgarth Falls, c.1995

 At Aysgarth in Wensleydale on the River Ure there are a series of falls (Upper, Middle and Lower), known for their beauty rather than their height.  The Falls have attracted visitors for over 200 years including writers William Wordsworth, and John Ruskin and painter J. M. W. Turner. 

 Hardraw Force is a waterfall in Hardraw Scar, a wooded ravine near the town of Hawes in Wensleydale.   With a single drop of 100 feet from a rockly outcrop, it is thought to be England’s highest unbroken waterfall.   Nearby is the 700 year old Green Dragon Inn, where Wordsworth and Turner stayed on their visit to the area. 

Both Aysgarth Falls and Hardraw provided a backdrop in  the film “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves”. 

To end on a prsonal note  -  My parents, John Weston and Kathleen Danson, taken in 1937,  by the river  at Kirby Lonsdale, where they got engaged.  This remained one of their favourite spots to visit.

 

  Kirby Lonsdale in Cumbria on the edge of the Lake District is a fascinating small town  with   a mix of  18th-century buildings and stone cottages huddled around quaint cobbled courtyards and narrow alleyways with names such as Salt Pie Lane and Jingling Lane.  

The town is noted for the its three span Devil's Bridge, first built across the River Lune c.1370. You catch a glimpse of it here.

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 

       to share their family history through photographs

 Click  HERE to read other bloggers' watery tales.