INTHODUCTION. 



Berwickshire is the most south-easterly county in Scot- 

 land, and has, generally speaking, well-defined natural 

 boundaries — the Lammermuir Hills on the north, the 

 valley of the Leader on the west, the German Ocean on 

 the north and east, and the river Tweed on the south.-^ It 

 is oblong in shape — the greatest length from east to west 

 being about 29 miles, and the utmost breadth from north to 

 south nearly 21 miles. The area is 294,804 acres of land, 

 1557 acres of water, and 799 acres of foreshore — in all 464 

 square miles.^ 



The coast is bold and precipitous, and measures, ex- 

 clusive of minor sinuosities, about 1 9 miles in length. It 

 trends in a north-westerly direction from the eastern 

 extremity of the parish of Mordington — on the march of 

 the Liberties of Berwick — to St. Abb's Head, and 

 thence westwards by Fast Castle to the mouth of Dunglass 

 Burn on the boundary of East-Lothian. Along the sea- 

 board a wide ridge of elevated ground stretches from 

 Lamberton Moor on the east to the neighbourhood of 

 Cockburnspath on the west, where it terminates in the 

 Lammermuir Hills, which extend thence along the northern 

 and western confines of the county to Channelkirk and 



1 According to the one-inch Ordnance Survey the limits of Berwickshire are 

 as follows :— 



Northern limits, . . .> . 55° 56' 50" 



Southern limits, 55° 34' 



Eastern limits, 2° 2' 



Western limits, 2° 64' 35" 



* See Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1886), vol. i. p. 152. 



