Gretna Green

The History of Gretna Green Editor

On Saturday 25th June at precisely twelve noon, at Wellers Auctioneers’ new Guildford Salerooms, the bidding commenced on Lot 545, an impressive, mammoth glass commemorative goblet. The Auctioneers’ Catalogue claimed a date of about c1850 or mid nineteenth century and they are not at all wrong. In fact I think it could have been made to commemorate an 1856 event. The form of the glass, that is its shape does suggest a date nearer to 1860 than to 1850. Some might say it was a documentary piece. It was well over nine inches, that is 23 centimetres in height and of about pint capacity at least. It had a standard (RF) round funnel bowl and a hollow, waisted baluster stem on a standard circular foot with an open pontil, showing the glass had been handcrafted without the use of any mechanical tools. Its solid feel, heavy weight and lustrous grey colouring, and the protracted ring produced from tapping the side of the bowl near to the rim confirmed that it was made of the finest English lead crystal. However and additionally what really confirmed its pedigree and its importance Late 18thC Staffordshire ‘Gretna New Act’ was the most wonderful floral engraving which encircled the bowl for more than three quarters of its group, featuring vicar, page circumference, this embracing a framed, trapezium-shaped cartouche containing three beautifully boy and betrothed around a engraved figures. On the right was a blacksmith, a long-handled hammer held in his right hand and ‘New Marriage Act’ scroll and the hammer head resting on the ground, his left arm akimbo. Centre stage is a large anvil, and behind bocage above, on square the anvil and facing outwards and to the front was the figure of a woman wearing some form of head base, 6.75in. Gorringes, and long flowing robes. To the left a man, also in flowing robes and a cape, with knee length Lewes. Apr 03. HP: £650. ABP: £767. boots was bent over the anvil and appeared to be signing a document. Underneath the cartouche were two words, now framed in our popular culture for more than two hundred and fifty years. In bold upper case and in an antique style the description read, GRETNA GREEN. Gretna’s famous runaway began in 1753 when Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act was passed in . It stated that if both parties to a marriage were not at least twenty one years old, then parents had to consent to the marriage. This Act did not apply in where it was possible for boys to marry at fourteen and girls at twelve years old with or without parental consent. Many elopers fled England and the first Scottish village they encountered was Gretna Green. Today this lies in and Galloway, near the mouth of the River Esk. This ‘first village’ in Scotland is on the old coaching route from to . Today the A74(M) cuts through, not a stones throw away from the village. There is also a railway station, but this reminds us of a more tragic story associated with this famous village. In 1915, when the First World War was beginning to settle into its most entrenched and tragic years there occurred, right next to Gretna Green the Quentinshill rail crash. Two hundred and twenty six souls died in what is still today Rare early 19thC Staffordshire Gretna Green marriage group the worst rail disaster in British history. with bocage back and square The Old Blacksmith’s Shop was built around 1712, and Gretna Hall’s Blacksmith’s Shop in 1710. They base, 7.75in. (Tips to leaves were to become, in popular folklore at least, the focal tourist point for the marriage trade. The Old restored) Gorringes, Lewes. Blacksmith’s Shop opened to the public as a visitor attraction as early as 1887. The local blacksmith and his Apr 02. HP: £1,450. anvil have become the lasting symbols of Gretna Green . Scottish law allowed for ‘irregular ABP: £1,711. marriages’, meaning that if a declaration was made before two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority

ANTIQUES INFO - September/October 11 Gretna Green to conduct the marriage ceremony. The blacksmith’s of Gretna was the second marriage in 1826 of to Green became known as ‘anvil priests’. Since 1929 both parties in the young heiress Ellen Turner, called the Shrigley abduction. In Scotland have had to be at least sixteen years old, but they may 1856 Scottish law was changed to require twenty one days’ still marry without parental consent. In England and Wales the age residence for marriage, and a further law change was made in for marriage is now sixteen for both parties with consent, and 1940. The residential requirement was lifted in 1977. Other eighteen without. Gretna’s two blacksmith’s shops and countless Scottish border villages used were Bridge, Lamberton, inns and smallholdings became the backdrop for hundreds of Mordington and Paxton Toll, but only Gretna has remained as a thousands of weddings. Today there are several venues in world famous venue in the popular culture. Hence in an episode of and around Gretna Green, from former churches to purpose-built the BBC series, You Rang, M’Lord? Two of the characters elope to chapels. The services at all of these venues are always performed Gretna prompting two others in the script to elope in a similar over an iconic blacksmith’s anvil. Gretna Green endures as one of manner. In , by Jane Austen, the couple that the world’s most popular wedding venues and thousands of elopes in Chapter 47 leave a note stating their intended destination couples from across the globe come to be married ‘over the anvil’ is Gretna Green. And in Nemesis, by Agatha Christie there is a at Gretna Green. passing reference to Gretna. Also in the BBC drama Waterloo In common law a ‘Gretna Green marriage’ came to mean a Road, Francesca Montagu, a teacher and Jonah Kirby, a pupil flee marriage transacted in a jurisdiction that was not the residence of to Gretna Green to be married, and almost twenty years ago, in the the parties being married, to avoid restrictions or procedures BBC soap opera Eastenders, Sam Mitchell and Ricky Butler as imposed by the parties’ home jurisdiction. A notable ‘Gretna’ event teenagers flee to Gretna to be wed.

The Gretna Green Memorabilia Market So much for the history and the background to Gretna, but what has posterity left us in the way of antiques or memorabilia? Well, apart from the fine glass goblet no other glass objects which commemorate this famous village and the part it played in runaway marriages have been found. There are a few prints around the auctions but little original art. And the prints and cartoons seem to concentrate on coaching scenes around the village rather than specifically the ‘art’ of marriage or anvil scenes, but there are a few. I scoured auction results from the last ten years using major auctions results databases to little avail except when I began to concentrate my search on ceramics. Here I began to have some success, or shall we say a little more luck. In April 2002 at Gorringes Auction in Lewes a rare and early nineteenth century Staffordshire Gretna Green pearlware marriage group, with bocage and a square base suggestive of a date of about 1800 and with only the tips of the leaves restored made £1,706 including premium. And at the same auction a year later, what was described as a late eighteenth century Staffordshire pearlware Gretna ‘New Marriage Act’ group, featuring a vicar, a page boy and the betrothed couple around a ‘New Marriage Act’ scroll, with bocage above, on a square base fetched a rather poor £765 including premium. This has me confused as I am only aware of a ‘New Marriage Act’ dating to 1836 and this group is clearly much earlier so I will have to continue my research. Later, in 2006, at Peter Wilson in Nantwich, Cheshire a Pratt Ware jug, c1790, with restoration and showing a Gretna marriage scene fetched a poor £105 including premium. I cannot guess at the amount or the quality of the restoration, but considering the rarity of any Pratt Ware, let alone a Gretna jug this clearly indicates that this sale did not find any of the specialist buyers of rare Pratt Ware. The jug looks to be in excellent display condition and deserving of £250 at the very least. This was about the price fetched for a Pratt Ware oval moulded plaque at Mellors and Kirk in 2010, showing a wedding at Gretna Green. This would also date to about 1800. Plaques are rare. One sold at Lawrences in 2003 for just under £400 but I have not seen the image online as the record had the wrong image attached. Lawrences also sold in 2004 a Staffordshire figure of a blacksmith with bocage standing over an anvil. This realised just over £500 and would have been one half of a Gretna Green group. Finally, and in 2002 Dreweatte Neate sold a fine pearlware Gretna Green marriage group with a groom and his standing, with a blacksmith officiating at the anvil, with bocage on a rectangular plinth and dating to the early nineteenth century. This fetched £600 including premium. So much for the really rare and the really worthwhile. The earlier wares are selling in the price range of say £1,700 down to about £250. At the more popular end of the market Burleighware appears to dominate the Gretna market with their chargers, plaques and jugs fetching on average about £40. Finally the curious reader must be asking: How much did the superb glass goblet sell for at Wellers on the 25th June? I can tell you that the estimate was a £100-£150 and the buyer paid more than three times the upper estimate. However if the right buyers had been around on that very hot Saturday at noon it would have fetched far, far more!

ANTIQUES INFO - September/October 11