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The belief that Berwick is Scottish is also reinforced by the fact that most of the commercial banks in the town are Scottish and that the local football team plays in the Scottish league. Dialect also leads to the belief that Berwick is Scottish as to most Englishmen the local `Tweedside' accent spoken in Berwick sounds Scottish, although most Scots would recognise the Northumbrian influence.
The Scottish claim for Berwick is certainly strong but the English influence upon the area is also very significant. Berwick as already stated began as an English or at least an Anglo-Saxon settlement, in the Kingdom of Northumbria and although for four hundred years it regularly changed hands between England and Scotland it has remained in the former part of the United Kingdom for the past five centuries. Berwick's policeman and laws are therefore English, and its most senior councillor is an English mayor not a provost as in the Scottish system of local government. Berwick town also has an important status, as the administrative centre for the Northumberland County District of Berwick upon Tweed, which includes the Farne islands, Lindisfarne and the very Northumbrian villages of Wooler, Bamburgh and Belford.
It is hardly surprising that given Berwick's curious Anglo Scotish location, the local residents tend to regard themselves as independent `Tweedsiders' or `Berwickers' rather than English or Scottish. In fact until the Reform Act of 1885 Berwick did have a considerable degree of independence with the status of a `Free Burgh' meaning that it had to be mentioned seperately in Acts of Parliament.
Berwick's status was such that even the Crimean War had to be declared in the name of Great Britain, Ireland and Berwick Upon Tweed. Strangely after this war, when the peace treaty was signed Berwick's name was omitted and for many years the town was said to be technically still at war with the Russians.
It is hard to believe that a town with such a turbulent history as Berwick was once one of the most prosperous merchant towns in Britain and was worth to Scotland an annual customs value of £2,190, which was equivelant to about one quarter of the customs of the whole of England. In the thirteenth century the wealthy town was described as;"So populous and of such commercial importance that it might rightly be called another Alexandria, whose riches were the sea and the water its walls"
In the fourteenth century Berwick became a real walled town when King Edward I fortified it against Scottish attack. His defensive walls supplemented the stronghold of Berwick Castle which stood on the site of the present railway station. Some of the town walls can still be seen today, dating mainly from the later Elizabetan period. They are among the finest of their kind in Europe.
Berwick is one of the most picturesque towns on the region's coast, mainly because of its attractive red roofed houses, pinkish grey Georgian buildings and the fine seventeenth century bridge, which spans the River Tweed.
Most notable of the town's buildings are the spired town hall of 1754 and the Berwick parish church, called Holy Trinity which is one of only a few built in England in Cromwellian times. For an historic parish church it is unusual, in that it has no steeple, tower or church bell. Instead a bell in the Town Hall is used to summon people to the church services at Holy Trinity. It is no wonder that many visitors to Berwick mistake the Town Hall for the parish church.
The River Tweed at Berwick is almost as well known as the Tyne at Newcastle for its bridges. There are three here namely; Old Bridge, the Royal Tweed Bridge, and the Royal Border Bridge.The Royal Tweed is the most recent, built in 1925 it carries the old A1 through the town, although the more modern road now bypasses the town to the west. The Royal Border Bridge is an impressive nineteenth century railway viaduct. Opened by Queen Victoria in 1850, it was built by Robert Stephenson, creating an important rail link between London and Edinburgh.