HERIOT's DYKE by ANGUS GRAHAM, M.A., F.S.A., F.S.A.SCOT
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HERIOT'S DYKE by ANGUS GRAHAM, M.A., F.S.A., F.S.A.SCOT. TRADITIOE TH . I N HERIOT'S DYKE markes 6-ina ,e th .n dO.So . map, lineaa s 1i r earthwork runnin. gE and W. for rather more than a mile across Greenlaw Moor (squares 7048, 7148). The Ancient Monuments Commissioners, who surveyed Berwickshire in 1908, held it to be considerably longer, as they carried it, with interruptions, from Haerfaulds (574500), near Blythe, to the Greenlaw-Duns highway (A 6105) at a point (721484) near the demolished house of Flourish walls2 (not marked on the 7th series of the i-in. Mileo t s 5 o FIG. i. Approximate position of Heriot's Dyke (dotted line) as show Chalmersn no Nortf o p h ma Britai' Caledonia,n i . 1807ed , enclosee Th . d57 oblond i, an betwee 6 g5 represent. npp e th s area illustrate fign di .2 •"'Berwick; upon Tweed Coldstream« O.S. map) distanca , somf eo e nine miles literarA . y tradition,3 however, creditt si with a length of something like twenty-three miles, placing its eastern end on the Whiteadder threr Wateo o e miletw r s abov latter'e eth s junction wit Tweee hth n i d- one version at Hutton4 - while there is even a suggestion that it ran on to Berwick-on- Tweed (fig. i). In view of this conflict in the record, and also of a tendency towards scepticism regarding such theories which has resulted from recent work on the principal Scottish earthworks, real and supposed,5 it seems desirable to re-examine all wha e evidencee se th to t conclusion d ,an sDyke'e emergth o t ss etrua e characted an r purpose. Scepticism is encouraged, in the case of Heriot's Dyke, by three principal causes. Provisionae th f o W N l 1edition4 Shee7 6-ine T N tTh .. sheets5 referre5 , thin i NE so d t 4 pape 5 e ar r (the whole), 56 SW, 64 NW, 64 NE, 65 SW, 74 NW, 74 NE, 84 NW, 85 SE, 95 SW, all in loo-km. square XVI, XVI, , SW ISW ISE V X , SW V oldeXI e , th rn i NW edition r o V ; XI , XII s, NT sheetSE INE I sVI i-ine th XXI , .XXI, n I seriesXXII, NE . INW I INE ,INW XX , NW I XX , NW X XVIIX , X, XNE ISW 7th edition same th , e groun coveres di sheey d b (Dunbar 3 t6 smala d l)an par sheef to (Berwick-on-Tweed)4 t6 . 2 Berwickshire, pp. 95 f., 117, 123. The spelling 'Flourishwells' appears to be a misprint. principae 3Th l reference Heriot'o st s followss Dyka e ear : Berwickshire, xxxvi f.5 ,,9 117, 123; Chalmers, , CaledoniaG. (1807), i, 162, 243; 11, 211 Berwickshired ; Ol Gibson n A , R. , Town, ff.8 ;24 H.B.N.C., , 114v ; vi, n, 17; x, 311; xvin, 115; xxv, 201; xxvi, 360 ff.; xxix, 74; N.S.A., H (Berwickshire), 43 n., 72; P.S.A.S., ix (1870-2) f.9 ; 46 ,L V (1920-1), 240, 253; Slot. Acct., xiv (1795), 51. 2n tH.B.^.C., xvin, 115. 5 Especially Roxburghshire, App. D, on the Catrail; Selkirkshire, No. 182, on the 'Military Road', and App. A, on the Picts' Work Ditch; P.S.A.S., LXXXIII (1948-9), 174 ff., on the Deil's Dyke in Galloway; LXXXVIII (1954-6), 13Deil'e th 7 fF.n so , Dyk Dumfriesshirn ei Ayrshired ean . 227 228 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, ig6l-62 The first of these is the smallness of the base on which the edifice of tradition rests. trus i t eI tha bees gooa t ha ndk expendedeain time f d Dyke o l on eth an t en a do another, but, when the various reports are compared, the conclusion is plain that almost the whole story derives from a certain John Spottiswoode of Spottiswoode, whose theor a 'long f yo ' Heriot's Dyk s firsewa t printe n Chalmersdi ' Caledonia.1 Spottiswoode is there said to have written a manuscript account of the work about middle eighteente th th f eo h century, tracin g'ramparta fossed an , , fro mBritisa h strength, called Haerfaulds, hillmilea o n tw ,o s north-wes Spottiswoodef o t , through- out the country, to the vicinity of Berwick-on-Tweed. In that age, it was, in various places, very discernible know s people name th wa th Herrit's-dike.f o d ny et o e b an , ' The 'survey of this curious remain' was communicated to Chalmers by Spottis- woode's soninternad an , l evidence suggests that Chalmer probabld sha y seee nth manuscript himself2; but nothing is known as to the source of Spottiswoode's in- formation ther d facn i an , s tei some reaso suspeco nt simply t thama ye h thav e been repeating a piece of local lore, seeing that the minister of Greenlaw, writing twelve years before Caledonia was published, reproduces a 'tradition' which resembles Spottiswoode closely. The only other potentially important point emerging from earliee th r record thats si 1834n i , Dyk'tracte e sais th th , df evisiblwa e o 3'stilb o t l e Westruther,f o . N villagnortr e thougfa th f hw o e h ho doe t appearsno theore Th . y 4 a wholsa e must therefor hele eb d eithe refleco rt t folk-memory, whic unlikels hi o yt be accurate in details even if well founded on fact, or on the reported opinions of a single perso recogniseo n f no d standin antiquaryn a s ga , who, moreover, livea t da notoriously uncritical period. It is easy to imagine, for example, how Spottiswoode might have been influenced by Alexander Gordon's account of the Catrail, which publishes wa 172n di pictured 6an d that monumen kina s barbariaf a tdo n limes some 5 fifty miles in length. seconA d reaso cautior nfo acceptinn i g Spottiswoode' intrinsin s theorow s it cys i thinness. Whatever may have been visible in the middle of the eighteenth century, and Chalmers' use of the words 'in various places, very discernible' implies that the work was not even then 'discernible' as a continuous unit, since the coming of the Ordnance Survey, at any rate, the gaps have far outrun the remains of walling or earthwork. Details will be found in Part II, but, to anticipate results, it may be said here that, in the twenty-three miles of the Dyke's supposed length, all the actual structur seee eb thann todatca y extend aggregatn a o st lesf eo s tha half a nmil a d ,ean thad thif an o t s more tha nmila e constitute self-containee son d unit. These doubts are reinforced by the evidence of Roy's map of Scotland. As this was made durin perioe gth d 1747-55 t musi , closele b t y contemporary with Spottis- woode's paper consequentld an , conditione yth s tha t recordi t s should presumably correspond with those with familiar s whicwa e hh . However meano n y b s t suggest,i s tha t groune line mos th f Spottiswoode'th eo f o n t do s dykthes ewa n unimproved moorland; cultivated land is differentiated by the conventional indication of rigs, . 18071Ed , i, 243, with footnot . ef 2 ibid., footnot. eg 3 Stat. Acct., xiv (1795), 512 n. This note places the western end of the work at Boon, not at Haerfaulds, but this is probably due to confusion with the 'Black Dyke' recorded in Berwickshire, No. 246. 4 N.S.A., ii (Berwickshire) . 72 , 6 Itinerarium Septentrionale, 10. 2f HERIOT'S DYKE 229 and on this showing much of the area would seem to have already been under the plough. The main exception is the moorland lying between Hallyburton and Marchmont. particularls i t I 1 y important her noto et large eth e amoun arablf o t e ground shown SE. of the Blackadder Water, in the stretch downstream from Green- law, as this tends to undermine Spottiswoode's value as an authority for the former extension of the Dyke all through this region. t anotheYe r sourc suspiciof eo n frequene existth n si t failur observerf eo diso st - tinguish between ditch-and-bank earthwork roadsd trus i ol t ed I . thasan t theso etw classe remainf so sometimey sma puzzlingle sb y alike, especially wher ditce eth f ho earthworn a k happen havo st e been usetraca consequentls d da kan y shows markf so wheels, but experience should eliminate doubt in the majority of cases.2 However, literature th e constantle showar o s tw thae y th tconfused, sometime extenn a o t s t which suggests that the write3 r in question failed to realise that any difference existed between them. In the present case it is impossible to feel confident that Spottiswoode 4 could have mad distinctione eth ever o , n tha necessite th t doinr yfo woulo gs facn di t have occurred to him. A fina ltraditioe iteth mn i n which call consideratior sfo name th s nei 'Heriot's Dyke'. The form 'Heriot', actually 'Herriot', is first used in the New Statistical Account,5 writte t publishe no n 183n i t 4bu d untiadoptes e wa th l t i 1845y db d an ; Ordnance Survey, though only afte revisioe th r n carrie monumen189e n i th t 8- d ou t being shown on the first edition of the 6-in.