Despite the lack of the publicity, the Eastern Borders History Gathering at the Volunteer Hall, Duns, on March 9 was a great success.

Till Valley Archaeological Society, Ayton Local History Society, Dunse History Society, Bunkle and Preston History Group, Coldstream and District Local History Society and the University of Edinburgh’s ‘Recovering the Earliest English Language in Scotland: Evidence from place-names’ (REELS) project all had interesting displays.

There were around 50 people attending each talk — far surpassing the organisers’ expectations.

The REELS project kicked off proceedings with a talk about Berwickshire place-names. Carole Hough demonstrated their new Berwickshire Place-Name Resource website which covers 1,225 place-names; Simon Taylor, who, you may remember, talked about the subject at the 2017 Borders Heritage Festival event in Coldstream, talked about their first Berwickshire place-name volume which will cover 6 parishes in the county, and Eila Williamson talked about literary references to places in Berwickshire: David Hume wrote about Godscroft (an alias for his property at Gowkscroft near Abbey St Bathans), Sybil’s Well near Ladykirk is mentioned in Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion, Tibbie Fowler’s Glen and Cottage are mentioned in Wilson’s Tales of the Borders and no doubt there are lots more examples. Diane Hunter talked, with slides, about the Stobs Camp project. She said that the prisoner-of-war records were destroyed in the Blitz. She discussed what they’ve achieved, including rebuilding a memorial to the 46 POWs that died at Stobs and mentioned that they’re looking for the huts and equipment, sold off after the war, and that they would like to hear from anyone that has a piece or knows where a hut is. One of the audience mentioned that Stobs Camp was used for motor-racing and learning to drive in the 1950s.

David Connolly told us about the ‘skills passport’ – a little book in which your archaeological skills can be recorded and validated. I’m not convinced that it would be useful for anyone other than non-graduates under 25 but his British Archaeological Jobs and Resources website, www.bajr.org, seems useful for everyone; especially for the 53 guides that can be downloaded for free. He did make a good point, however, that community-led archaeological projects need to be funded and funders expect organisers to specify outcomes, some of which could be trained volunteers a

nd the skills passport could be used as evidence of those skills acquisitions. Lastly, Chris Bowles, the regional archaeologist announced his new project, ‘Whiteadder – the Historic Heart of the Lammermuirs’. This project which is expected to start in April will run for two years and a major deliverable is a heritage trail for walkers and drivers, from Garvald to Duns, taking in eight sites, four of which are prehistoric. Other outcomes are likely to explore Cockburn Law, the Friar’s Nose, Bunkle Castle, Gamelshiel Castle, Penshiel Grange, Whitecastle Hill among others and there’ll be a website, an app, and leaflets discussing the sites and the heritage.

The project will be looking for a variety of volunteers doing archaeology as well as desk-based research; if you’re interested, email Chris at archaeology@scotborders.gov.uk or ring him at the Council.

Peter Munro