Berwick

 I've been to the Scottish Borders for a few days. I spent some of that time in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which of course isn't in Scotland and hasn't been since Richard of Gloucester captured it in 1482. I was vaguely aware that ownership of the town had been keenly contested for centuries prior to that, but would have been hard pushed to tell you why, beyond the normal willy waving of medieval monarchs. However, as soon as one sees the place, all becomes obvious. Obviously any wargames blogger worth his salt would have taken plenty of photos to illustrate that, possibly featuring how its Elizabethan bastions allow artillery to dominate the mouth of the Tweed. Unfortunately this blog is written by me and all I've got is a picture of a cunningly disguised secret entrance from which the defenders could launch a surprise attack on unsuspecting besiegers.

The town's museum is in the former barracks, which incidentally may have been designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, and had some interesting exhibits. We haven't had a photo of a gibbet for a coiuple of weeks, so let's start with this:

For those of you wondering about the fish, don't - it's a red herring. This rather fine diorama was in a case with, as far as I could see, not much in the way of explanation. It could be Berwick Castle, but there's not much left of that, as the stone was robbed to build, amongst other things, the barracks.

In addition to the town museum, there is a large exhibition about the British Army from its formation to the colonial wars at the end of the 19th century, which was rather well done. I was pleased to see that it included some toy soldiers. My photo manages to include the colour party, but at the expense of showing either of the flank companies or the battalion guns, all of which are faithfully replicated. The 25th Regiment of Foot became, I believe, the King's Own Scottish Borderers, hence their being chosen for the display.

I did venture into Scotland, mainly for a spot of walking. This is what's left of  Roxburgh castle, which I include only because it was here that in 1460 James II of Scotland paid the price for playing too active a part in a siege. 'Haveng sik plesure in discharging gret gunis' he was killed when one of them 'brak in the fyring'.