Scotland - Crossing the Edges in Quest of the Bell Clan

 

A solitary candle flickers in the topmost window of the stone tower. A light red glow traces the remote form, silhouetting a bank of horsemen from the sky. They thunder closer, objective on plunder...even murder.

We're at the Tullie House Memorial in Carlisle, Britain observing an audio and light show depicting an average border raid by the reivers, or plunderers, the evening guerrilla action that happened from the 12th through the mid-17th centuries. Occasionally the conflict was between neighboring clans; at other instances, Scottish cycling clans joined makes with their bitter enemies to repel English occupation.

The movie lights increase, highlighting the audience, and we observe that the sign-in book is dominated by the signatures of readers whose surnames are identical to those of the significant participants in the Anglo-Scottish border feuds that transformed law-abiding people by time in to terrorists by night.

So it is that my partner, Boyd, and I learn we're perhaps not the only people on a venture in to the past. Our geographical destination is the location known as the Edges: the portion of much-fought-over land explained freely by Carlisle on the south; Berwick, Britain, on the northeast and Dalkeith, Scotland (just south of Edinburgh), on the north. It is country once roamed by my forefathers, the Bells and the Maxwells. Not atypical Scottish border families, these were on the list of ruffians and cows rustlers who, in the 17th century, were exiled by the British government to Upper Ireland.

A technology roughly later, these tough and resolute people who have strong group loyalties wanted their fortunes in North America, in my event on the Pennsylvania frontier. National record publications identify these immigrants as the Scotch-Irish. Fittingly, certainly one of their descendants, Neil Armstrong, was the very first person on the moon. While searching my family's gnarled roots, we will view the storybook earth they left out with their fears.

Having vicariously skilled an average edge raid, Boyd and I walk across the street to discover Carlisle Fortress, built by the Normans in 1092, and the nearby Carlisle Cathedral, significant for its medieval carvings, stained-glass windows and the church where Friend Walt Scott was committed in 1797.

Keeping sustained fascination for all of us, Carlisle is headquarters for travels to Hadrian's Wall. The cab driver at the top of the stick works out to be a specialist on the local history. He offers people with step-by-step maps to browse during his informative narration. From Solway Firth on the west to the River Tyne on the east, he tells us, the 73-mile rock wall was built between 122-128 A.D. by Roman emperor Hadrian to guard Roman Britain from upper tribes. It tumbles across land at once desolate and felicitous. Aside from mournful cries of curlews and relentless winds that beat across that archaeological prize, the encompassing moors are mute.

Hadrian's Wall marches through fresh, tough country, bounded on the north by forests, parkland and barren crags rising almost 2,000 feet. To its south, the Cumberland Basic is dotted with grazing lamb, Roman destroys, old castles, and crumbling abbeys where monks after mass-produced wonderful wools for local use and export. Naworth, Featherstone, Corby, Toppin and Bellister mansions lie along a 10-mile grow parallel to the wall. Relaxed walkers and serious backpackers dot the roadsides, prepared with tough walking sticks, binoculars, and water gear.

Nearly 2,000 years after the Romans remaining, their preserved forts and indicate systems confirm with their executive skills. At each key excavation, a small museum properties relics revealing how the innovative Romans produced themselves in the home in a hard land. They constructed relaxed barracks, hospitals, granaries, shops, inns, tub properties and latrines. With therefore many types of engineering resting about, historians question why the barbaric natives realized nothing from their progressive conquerors and continued to live in primitive style for generations afterward. Our driver waits patiently while we study the indicates and purchase pamphlets to see back home.

Following taking camera pictures much more photogenic for the outstanding orange air dappled with cottony clouds, we come back to Carlisle and get another train to rendezvous with our genealogist-hostess, May McKerrill. We understand beforehand from others who've loved her hospitality that she must be addressed technically while the Woman Hillhouse (pronounced Hill'-iss), and her Scottish chieftain partner, Charles, may be known as Sir Charles, or Lord Hillhouse.

The prepare rockets north from Carlisle previous Gretna in to Scotland. The countryside is a quilt of grassy mounds speckled with grazing lamb, accented by hard hedges, winding revenues, stone fences and whitewashed cottages of bygone ages. tellthebell survey

Moments later, we detrain in Lockerbie. With the exception of the stationmaster, we are alone. The late afternoon solitude is heightened by the surrounding barren hillock, site of the 1988 Pan Am explosion. Briefly, a Renault station truck draws up, the driver clothed in trousers of the McKerrill clan's orange tartan Introductions away, Friend Charles masses people and our baggage into his car for the 10-minute drive west to Lochmaben. On your way, he has a short detour to point out Remembrance Garden, Lockerbie's many visited spot, dedicated to the Pan Am victims.

Our street characteristics a hiker-friendly dismantled railroad track leading from Lockerbie to

Lochmaben, five miles to the west. Beyond the community green overlooking quaint stone and stone cottages, Lochmaben Fortress - website of the boyhood house of Scottish Master Robert the Bruce, who gained his country's liberty from England - is based on ruins.