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Chirnside

The west end of the church at Chirnside. Heavily modified at the beginning of the 20th century, it nevertheless preserves some of its original fabric. The Norman porch is on the extreme right of the photograph. Chirnside is a large village (or small town?) in Berwickshire, a district of the region known as Scottish Borders in the south-eastern extremity of the country. It has about 1500 inhabitants and is mainly famous for being the burial place of Jim Clark, the Formula 1 World Champion racing driver (every year there is a steady trickle of Clarkies arriving to pay their respects). It was also the home of David Hume, one of the most prominent philosphers (and historians) of the Scottish Enlightenment. It sits on a hill with stunning views across the Merse to the Cheviot Hills to the south and the Lammermuir Hills to the north. To the west (on a good day) you can see the Eildon Hills (Roman Trimontium, so called because there are three of them...) and to the east the North Sea (if you stand on tippy-toes on the main street).

The Norman porch Although Berwickshire is now in Scotland, it is the ancient shire of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is currently the northernmost town in England (having changed hands between the English and the Scots fourteen times). Berwick, situated at the mouth of the River Tweed, is only nine miles away from Chirnside. Chirnside is probably Anglian in origin (most of the placenames in Berwickshire are Anglo-Saxon) and the first church was built in the Norman period (between the 6th century AD and 1018 this was part of England) - part of the Norman arch can still be seen on the church. Not much has ever happened to Chirnside. It was bombed by a Zeppelin during the First World War, but that was probably more a comment on the navigational abilities of its crew than a widely-held Teutonic opinion of the village. The Blackadder family lived here (and indeed owned a small brewery) just over the road from the church. Said brewery ceased production in the 19th century once it was discovered that one of its two wells collected water that had passed through the churchyard. Yum...

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