[edit]
A 16th-century artillery fortress[edit]
Gunsgreen House, Eyemouth
Fort Point at Eyemouth was the site of the first trace-italienne-style fortification in Britain, built on a spur or peninsula overlooking the existing harbour during the war known as the Rough Wooing. Building commenced in 1547 by the English military engineer Sir Richard Lee (1513–1575), and it cost £1,906. Some of the stone was brought from a demolished tower at Dunglass Castle, East Lothian and timber was taken from Coldingham Priory.
The fort was demolished under the Treaty of Boulogne in 1551. A larger and more complex fort was built in 1557 and 1558 by d'Oisel and probably the Italian military engineer Lorenzo Pomarelli for the Regent of Scotland, Mary of Guise, when at war with England. The new fortress could hold some 500 French troops, and may have been intended as a staging post to securely store munitions and artillery near Berwick-upon-Tweed and the border with England. New fortifications were built at Berwick in response.
New picks, mattocks, and shovels made in Edinburgh Castle were shipped to the workforce from Leith in April 1558, and provisions with butter, biscuit, cheese, flour, and ling (salt fish) were sent until October. However, the new work at Eyemouth, which perhaps was never completed, was scheduled for demolition under the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. French garrisons remained in Scotland at Dunbar Castle, Inchkeith, and at Leith. The landward ramparts from both the English and French phases are still to be seen as earthworks.
17th and 18th centuries[edit]
Netherbyres House
Eyemouth fell within the feudal barony of Coldingham, possessed until the early 17th century by Coldingham Priory, after which it passed to the Home family, who had held lands in that barony since at least the 15th century. All landowners (portioners) within the barony held their properties either by hereditary feu or by a term-renewable, occasionally hereditary, tack (Scots word for a lease) from the barony.
The lands between the southern banks of the Eye Water consisted of three estates: Gunsgreen, immediately opposite Eyemouth and Netherbyres, once part of the larger lands of Flemington which stretched all the way to Lamberton. At the beginning of the 17th century Gunsgreen estate was possessed by Alexander Lauder of Gunsgreen, a great-great-grandson of Sir Robert Lauder of The Bass. On 17 January 1629, Alexander Lauder of Gunsgreen, acting as bailie for Sir David Home of Wedderburn, gave a sasine to Andrew Gray in Eyemouth, of some land on the boundaries of Houndlaw and also in Eyemouth.
Netherbyres was for at least 250 years held by the Craw (originally Auchincraw) family. "George Craw of Netherbyre" was "deceased" by July 1614 when his son William came into possession of that property and Reidhall, "with the walk mill" extending to 12 husbandlands (312 acres (126 hectares)). A later William Craw, who had a passion for mathematics, built the first modern harbour at Eyemouth and, in 1715, the elliptical walled garden, the latter almost certainly unique in the world. The Netherbyres House we see today was commenced about 1835 for Captain Samuel Brown, who had the patent and monopoly for the supply of anchor chain to the Royal Navy. He later went on to design and patent chain suspension piers and bridges, including the Union Bridge over the River Tweed,
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough was created Lord Churchill of Eyemouth in the Peerage of Scotland in 1682. This was the first of his peerage titles. In the late 18th century Dutch engineers undertook a survey for a canal linking Eyemouth to Duns. The plan would have involved damming the Whiteadder Water at Chirnside thus diverting the course of the Whiteadder Water through the low-lying area known as Billiemire to join the Eye Water near Ayton. The plan was never carried out.
19th century onwards[edit]
Bronze statue of William Spears.
The hero William Spears (1812–1885) is celebrated by a bronze statue in Eyemouth Market Place, where he stands pointing the way to Ayton, the scene of his peaceful demonstration. Spears led a revolt against the tithes on fish levied by the Church of Scotland, even after the great Disruption of 1843 when most fishermen left the established Church to join other congregations.
Very soon after the cost of getting the tithes removed had been met, the town was struck by the Eyemouth Disaster when, on 14 October 1881, most of the fishing fleet, some 20 boats and 129 men from the town, were lost in a terrible storm. Including victims from other coastal towns, a total of 189 men lost their lives. This is commemorated in the Eyemouth Tapestry housed in the museum.
A contemporary article offers an interesting insight into Eyemouth in the 1860s:
Between St Abbs Head and Berwick, however is situated Eyemouth, a fishing village pure and simple, with all that wonderful filth scattered about which is a sanitary peculiarity of such towns. The population of Eyemouth is in keeping with the outward appearance of the place. As a whole, they are rough, uncultivated, and more drunken in their habits than the fishermen of the neighbouring villages. Coldingham Shore, for instance, is only three miles distant, and has a population of about one hundred fishermen, of a very respectable class, sober and well dressed, and well to do.
In December 1920, a war memorial was unveiled in the town to those who died in the First World War. Netherbyres House was bought by Christopher Furness in 1928, and was donated to Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Society for charitable use by his second son, Colonel Simon Furness, the Vice Lord Lieutenant for Berwickshire.
From 1891 until 1962, the town was served by a short branch railway line that ran from Burnmouth on the present-day East Coast Main Line. The line was forced to close from August 1948 to June 1949 after being damaged by the flooding of the Eye Water.
In October 2016, a statue was unveiled to commemorate the Eyemouth Fishing Disaster of 1881. It is a five-metre long bronze sculpture called 'Widows and Bairns'.
