Lamberton is a hilly, former landed estate in

Berwickshire Berwickshire ( gd, Siorrachd Bhearaig) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. Berwickshire County Council existed from 1890 until 1975, when the area became part of th ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, its eastern boundary being the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

. It is north of

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census re ...

, on the Great North Road (today the A1).

Original family

Adam de Lamberton gave a charter of a third part of his land of Lamberton to his grandson, Galfrido de Hasswell between 1190 and 1200. In the

National Archives of Scotland The National Archives of Scotland (NAS) is the previous name of the National Records of Scotland (NRS), and are the national archives of Scotland, based in Edinburgh. The NAS claims to have one of the most varied collection of archives in Europe ...

(RH1/2/59) there is a charter of Sir Peter de Mordington, knt., son of the deceased Sir William de Mordington, as superior, in favour of Simon de Baddeby of certain lands in Lamberton, dated 1270. A William de Lamberton was superior c. 1318.

Barony

Some records give Lamberton as a feudal barony; others that it became part of the vast barony assigned to

Coldingham Priory Coldingham Priory was a house of Benedictine monks. It lies on the south-east coast of Scotland, in the village of Coldingham, Berwickshire. Coldingham Priory was founded in the reign of David I of Scotland, although his older brother and predec ...

. (It may be partly both).

Renton family

A charter (RH1/2/98) dated November 21, 1325 of Agnes de Mordington, in favour of John de Raynton, thereafter designated as "of Lamberton", appears to herald the long possession of Lamberton by this family, descendants of the ancient foresters of

. "Robert de Renton, Lord of Lamberton" was in possession in 1407. In 1632 David Renton of Billie held "the forty husbandlands (1040 acres) of Lambertoun within the lordship of Coldingham". By the 18th century the Rentons had passed their ancient estate of Billie to the Homes, but retained Lamberton. The Rentons of Lamberton were in the early 19th century represented by Alexander Renton of Lamberton (d. before March 1831), who was served his father's heir in the lands and mains of Lamberton in 1774, and whose only child, a daughter Susanna, married Robert Campbell, a Colonel in the

42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot The 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot was a Scottish infantry regiment in the British Army also known as the Black Watch. Originally titled Crawford's Highlanders or the Highland Regiment and numbered 43rd in the line, in 1748, on the disband ...

. Their son, Charles Frederick (1819 - 1891), Colonel in the 87th Regiment of Foot, hyphenated his surname. The Campbell-Rentons of Lamberton, and, later,

Mordington Mordington is an agricultural parish in the extreme south-east of Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders region. It is five miles from Berwick-upon-Tweed and borders Northumberland to the east, and south (where the boundary is the Whiteadder ...

House, also failed in the male line with the death in 1948 of Robert Charles Campbell-Renton.

Royal connection

The now ruined Lamberton

Kirk Kirk is a Scottish and former Northern English word meaning "church". It is often used specifically of the Church of Scotland. Many place names and personal names are also derived from it. Basic meaning and etymology As a common noun, ''kirk' ...

was the church where, in July 1503,

Margaret Tudor Margaret Tudor (28 November 1489 – 18 October 1541) was Queen of Scotland from 1503 until 1513 by marriage to King James IV. She then served as regent of Scotland during her son's minority, and successfully fought to extend her regency. Ma ...

the daughter of

King Henry VII Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, ...

of England, met the representatives of King James IV of Scotland (and traditionally is said to have married him by proxy), thus leading to the eventual succession of

James VI James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

to the English throne. Only ruins of the nave and chancel remain, as the burial-place of the Rentons of Lamberton.

Tournament

A tournament featuring knights from both England and Scotland participated in a tournament on Lamberton Moor to celebrate the marriage of

and King James IV.Aikman, J & Gordon, W. (1839) An Account of the Tournament at Eglinton. Pub. Hugh Paton, Carver & Gilder. Edinburgh. M.DCCC.XXXIX. P. XII.

Links with the Earls of Eglintoun

Susanna Montgomerie (died 27 July 1754) was the third daughter of Alexander Montgomerie, 9th Earl of Eglinton by his third wife, Susanna Kennedy, daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of

Culzean Culzean Castle ( , see yogh; sco, Cullain) is a castle overlooking the Firth of Clyde, near Maybole, Carrick, in South Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa, the chief of Clan Kennedy, but is n ...

. She married (before 1 August 1739) John Renton of Lamberton and had two daughters: Susan Renton who married Sir Robert Murray of Clermont and Hillhead, 6th Bart (died 1771); and Eleonora Renton who married (22 August 1770) Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddom (1750–1813).

Irregular marriages

The now demolished Old

Toll House A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th an ...

at Lamberton, situated just across the border in Scotland, was famous for its irregular marriages. From 1798 to 1858 keepers of the Toll, as well as questionable men-of-the-cloth used to marry couples in the same fashion as at the more familiar

Gretna Green Gretna Green is a parish in the southern council area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, on the Scottish side of the border between Scotland and England, defined by the small river Sark, which flows into the nearby Solway Firth. It was histo ...

. The site of the house is marked by a plaque.

Smallholdings

Lamberton today consists largely of

smallholding A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...

s Williams, John, editor, ''Smallholding Memories'', Berwick-upon-Tweed, 2000 compulsorily purchased, under an Act of Parliament, from the last Campbell-Renton

laird Laird () is the owner of a large, long-established Scottish estate. In the traditional Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranked below a baron and above a gentleman. This rank was held only by those lairds holding official recognition in ...

, to provide a living for soldiers returning from

The Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. However, the land was not suited to crops, the holdings were too small for anything other than subsistence living, and today the original holdings are generally merged with others to make larger farms. Some modern house-building activity has taken place over the past decade along the original A1 (now bypassed). There is no town or village, as such, just scattered housing, with views over the

Foulden, Mordington and Lamberton Community Council

The regional authority today is the

Scottish Borders Council Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

, based some to the west at Newtown St. Boswells,

Roxburghshire Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh ( gd, Siorrachd Rosbroig) is a historic county and registration county in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It borders Dumfriesshire to the west, Selkirkshire and Midlothian to the north-west, and Be ...

. Lamberton also returns three elected councillors to th
Foulden Mordington & Lamberton

Community Council A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain. In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies. I ...

, similar to an English parish council. Meetings between April 2020 and April 2021 were held on-line due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From May 2021, the Community Council has resumed face to face meetings with the community councillor team at Fouldenbr>Village Hall

Notes

References

* ''The Scottish Nation'', by William Anderson, Edinburgh, 1870, volume 2, pps: 338-9. * ''A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland'', by Sir Bernard Burke, C.B.,LL.D.,

Ulster King of Arms Norroy and Ulster King of Arms is the Provincial King of Arms at the College of Heralds with jurisdiction over England north of the Trent and Northern Ireland. The two offices of Norroy and Ulster were formerly separate. Norroy King of Arms is t ...

, Ninth Edition, London, 1898, p. 1251. * ''Borders and Berwick'', by Charles A Strang, Rutland Press, 1994. {{ISBN, 1-873190-10-7

External links

The narrated history of Lamberton Kirk
Lamberton Lamberton Kirk Anglo-Scottish border