A little story
Disclaimer - this may well be familiar to those of you who watch QI.



It is an interesting fact that the town of Berwick upon Tweed isn't technically part of England or Scotland - it's got a special designation that allows it to be both. It is a related fact that the Queen's title is therefore "Queen of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and Berwick upon Tweed. When the official declaration marking the start of the Crimean war was produced in 1854, this was the title used. However the peace treaty in 1856 makes no mention of Berwick, which was therefore still fighting the war. This state of affairs continued until sometime in the 1960s when the mayor of Berwick finally signed a treaty to mark the legal end of the war.

So there we have it. Berwick upon Tweed. Most violent place in Britain.
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:40, 4 replies)

also...
since it was such an important port - presumably the most important between the forth and the tyne - it was constantly fought over by england and scotland ... from the 12th to the 15th centuries, it was the most fought-over chunk of real estate in the world, jerusalem excepted ...

although i may have heard this on QI
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 20:33, closed)

Why
When I lived in Edinburgh Berwick always looked like the ideal place for a Sunday drive. Having been through it though we knew it was a shithole and there was no reason to make the trip.
(The Jannie, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 21:08, closed)

I fear that story may be a little apocryphal
And to prove it, I have pictures! Well, there's pictures in this wikipedia article:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwick-upon-Tweed

And as we all know that wikipedia is 100% accurate, it must be true that the truth of whether the story about Berwick is true or not must be true. Or something.
(nd1001 slamdunked my funk, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 21:40, closed)

All bollocks I'm afraid
A nice story that's been around for years, mainly to boost tourism/awareness. Berwick is a wonderful place if you avoid chav central (the holiday camp). Fortunately this is easy and most of the inmates never wander in to town (nowhere to park and they're too lazy to waddle that far). Get a guided tour of the walls (hear the truth, it's far more interesting), go for a swim behind the pier, walk along the New Road (path along the river), walk along the pier in the evening and watch the poachers pulling salmon from the Tweed, paddle in the rock pools formed by the extinct volcano, look for fossils in the cliffs - there's plenty to do.

Biased? Definitely. I used to spend most holidays there as my grandparents lived there and I'll be going back there for a few days when I'm back in the UK for Christmas, and yes I will be going for a swim behing the pier.
( SteamedCleaner, Thu 5 Nov 2009, 8:36, closed)