Morebattle is a village in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lot ...

area of

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 ...

, on the B6401, seven miles south of

Kelso, Scottish Borders Kelso ( sco, Kelsae gd, Cealsaidh) is a market town in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Roxburghshire, it lies where the rivers Tweed and Teviot have their confluence. The town has a p ...

, beside the

Kale Water The Kale Water is a long tributary of the River Teviot in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Its feeder burns in the Cheviot Hills are the Long Burn, Hawkwillow Burn and the Grindstone Burn, east of Leithope Forest near the Anglo-Scottish ...

, a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the

River Teviot The River Teviot (; gd, Abhainn Tìbhiot), or Teviot Water, is a river of the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, and is the largest tributary of the River Tweed by catchment area. The Teviot is an important river for wildlife, especially the A ...

. The St. Cuthbert's Way

long distance footpath A long-distance trail (or long-distance footpath, track, way, greenway) is a longer recreational trail mainly through rural areas used for hiking, backpacking, cycling, horse riding or cross-country skiing. They exist on all continents exc ...

passes through the village. Surrounding villages include Cessford and Eckford to the west;

Linton Linton may refer to: Places Australia * Linton, Victoria Canada * Linton, Ontario * Linton, Quebec United Kingdom England * Linton, Cambridgeshire * Linton, Derbyshire * Linton (near Bromyard), Herefordshire * Linton (near Ross-on-Wye), Her ...

to the north;

Town Yetholm Town Yetholm ('town yet-ham') is a small village in the Scottish Borders in the valley of the Bowmont Water opposite Kirk Yetholm. The town colours are green and yellow. The centre of the small village is made up of the village green surro ...

and Kirk Yetholm to the east; and

Hownam Hownam or HounamHounam
National Library of Scotland is a small village and

and

Mowhaugh Mowhaugh is a hamlet and farm steading near the Calroust Burn and the Bowmont Water, near Morebattle, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, and in the former Roxburghshire. It is situated about 5 miles (8 km) from the Anglo-Scottish Bor ...

to the south.

History

The place-name comes from the Anglian ''mere-bōðl'' - "dwelling place by the lake" (Linton Loch). No evidence of any battles (the simplistic origin) exists. Morebattle parish church is noted as being in the

diocese of Glasgow The Archdiocese of Glasgow was one of the thirteen (after 1633 fourteen) dioceses of the Scottish church. It was the second largest diocese in the Kingdom of Scotland, including Clydesdale, Teviotdale, parts of Tweeddale, Liddesdale, Annanda ...

from approximately 1116.Morebattle
, www.cheviotchurches.org It stands on a prominence overlooking the

. The building was engulfed by fire in 1544 and rebuilt. The present structure dates mostly from the 1750s with extensions being erected in 1899 and 1903 by Hardy & Wight. The village has a "Teapot Street" which according to local legend (unlikely to be true) was named by

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

, who, passing through the village one day, noticed the wives in the street carrying teapots to the nearby Kale Water to picnic, and remarked, "that must be Teapot Street." Linton Loch was a substantial loch between Morebattle and

, but it was drained as part of the 19th century agricultural improvements in the area.History of Morebattle
www.morebattle.bordernet.co.uk

Dialect of Morebattle

The distinctive traditional Southern Scots dialect of Morebattle was the subject of a study by Swiss

dialectologist Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their ass ...

Rudolph Zai, published in 1942.Zai, Rudolf (1942). ''The Phonology of the Morebattle Dialect (East Roxburghshire)''. Lucerne: Räber.

Famous residents

* James Thomson, the Ednam poet, was born in Morebattle. * Robert Davidson, poet, lived and was buried in Morebattle, where he is commemorated.

Morebattle Hillfort

On the summit Morebattle Hill, half-a-mile south of the village, is the remains of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

hillfort ().Morebattle Hill 1
RCAHMS, retrieved 12 May 2014 The fort is shaped like an elongated letter D, with its main axis lying northeast to southwest. The fort measures 190 metres in length by 70 metres in greatest width within a single rampart. The remains of a small settlement can be seen at the northeast end of the fort. About 400 metres to the northeast, on a spur of the hill (), is a second smaller fort, largely levelled by cultivation.Morebattle Hill 2
RCAHMS, retrieved 12 May 2014 It originally measured 70 metres by 50 metres within double ramparts. The northeast end has been destroyed by a later quarry.

References

External links