Duns

Duns was created a Burgh of Barony in 1490 by James IV, and is a former county town of Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders.

Today

Duns has the largest shopping facilities in a radius of fifteen miles and houses the Berwickshire Sheriff Court as well as principal offices of the Scottish Borders Council. Since the early 1990s Duns and its immediate vicinity has seen substantial housing development, some controversial. A development near the golf club on the road to Longformacus just outside Duns is almost a town in itself and was built upon green field sites. Opposite the Berwickshire High School a new modern High School is now being constructed to replace the mid-1950s buildings in which the school is currently housed.

Castle

The feudal Laird is Alexander Hay of Duns and Drumelzier. His family acquired Duns Castle by marriage in 1696, and were responsible for the present Gothic Revival structure; prior to that, it had been a substantial Peel tower built in 1320 by the Earl of Moray who had been granted the estate by Robert I.

Country Houses

The district surrounding Duns once had a considerable number of famous Country Houses. Of those surviving are: the Edwardian mansion Manderston House (rebuilt 1903), which lies just outside the burgh on the A6105 road to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the home of a Liberal Peer, Lord Palmer.

Two miles east of Manderston stands early 18th century Edrom House (after architect James Smith), now the home of the supermodel Stella Tennant, and about a mile east of Edrom stands Blanerne House, an ancient seat of the Lumsden family, rebuilt by architect William Burn in 1895 following a fire. Its nearby ruined mediaeval Pele Tower stands nearby.

Nisbet House (c1630) with its great Tower (1774) is about 1.5 miles south of the town, and is currently being restored as a private home. Two miles east of Duns stands Wedderburn Castle (1771-5, architects Robert Adam and James Adam built on site of the earlier Tower house. It is the seat of the Homes of Wedderburn.

Further south lies Kimmerghame House, completely rebuilt in 1851 by architect David Bryce, a Scottish Baronial mansion almost destroyed by fire in 1947 but much rebuilt. It is now the seat of a former Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire, Major-General Sir John Swinton of Swinton (father of the actress Tilda Swinton).

The Ba game of Duns

This is a kind of mediaeval football. Three balls or "Ba"s were required for this game; the first was gold, the second silvered, and the third coloured or spotted. A fourth was provided in case of mishap, and if not needed was presented to the subscriber whose entertainment had been most hospitable, the Hay family at Duns Castle usually being the recipients.

At mid-day the honour of throwing up the ball would be auctioned in the Kirkyard. The throw would invariably be performed by a member of the Duns Castle family. At 1 o'clock the game began, the Ba being thrown up in the Market Square. The goal for the married men was the pulpit of the church, if this happened then the church bell would rung by the victors. The goal of the bachelors was the hopper of any of the grinding mills in the district, the nearest being over a mile away. If a bachelor won the Ba he would be dusted with flour and receive a meal of pork & dumplings from the miller.

The game was revived in 1949 as part of the Duns Summer Festival. The goals are now at opposite corners of the Market Square, by the White Swan hotel and the Post Office.

The town is popular with walkers, many of whom scale the Duns Law (hill).

Notable "Dingers"

• The Blessed John Duns Scotus, Theologian , Scholar and Logician (c.1266–1308)
• The Reverend Thomas Boston, Theologian and Presbyterian minister (1676–1732)
• Professor Abraham Robertson, Mathematician (4 November 1751 - 4 December 1826)
• Jim Clark, Formula 1 racing driver (1936–1968).   A small museum, which is known as The Jim Clark Room, can be found in Duns.

Twin towns

• Żagań, Poland

References

• Strang, Charles Alexander, Borders and Berwick, Rutland Press, 1994, (P/B), ISBN 1-873190-10-7