WHEN LOVE COMES TO TOWN
For 250 years besotted couples have been tying the knot at Gretna Green
Gretna Green has been a go-to wedding destination for 250 years
Gretna Green has been notorious for runaway weddings for more than 250 years and at the centre of its romantic story is the Famous Blacksmiths Shop. Built in 1712, the smithy was ideally located – on the main thoroughfare just half a mile north of the English border – to take advantage of an influx of young couples running away to Scotland to tie the knot, often with their parents in hot pursuit.
This followed the introduction of Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1754, which stipulated a minimum marital age of 21 without parental consent in England. Too many youngsters were marrying into the classes above or below and parents wanted more control over their unions. However, in Scotland, the minimum age for marriage remained at 16 and anyone could perform a ceremony, anywhere.
Joseph Paisley, t he canny blacksmith of Gretna Green and the first ‘anvil priest’, realised that marrying couples was more profitable than shoeing horses, and created a simple ceremony, striking his anvil with a hammer to mark the
joining of two lives – a ritual still performed today in the Famous Blacksmiths Shop.
Soon the imagery of the fire, hammer and anvil became associated with romance and rebellion. ‘It was folklore that the blacksmith at Gretna Green would join lives together in the heat of the moment in the same way that he welds metal together over the heat of the fire,’ explains Alasdair Houston, who owns and operates Gretna Green alongside his sister Susan Clark.
Seeing how popular these runaway weddings had become – and that Scotland had no intention of adopting England’s law – Lord Brougham’s Cooling Off Act came into force in 1856, imposing a 21-day residency in Scotland by at least one half of the couple prior to a marriage. Despite the ease with which this could be acquired – some locals offered to sign the residency declaration in exchange for beer at the tavern – the new law, among other social and cultural changes, saw a decline in Gretna Green weddings.
A few decades later, in 1885, the Gretna Green Estate and the neglected Famous Blacksmiths Shop were purchased for farmland by Hugh Mackie, the great-grandfather of Alasdair and Susan. When he noticed visitors peering in the window of the old smithy, he realised he had an untapped business opportunity right on his own doorstep. Within a year, Hugh had dusted off the cobwebs, installed a penny turnstile at the door and started telling the story of Gretna Green’s past. He insisted to couples that marriages ‘over the anvil’ weren’t illegal, simply that the threeweek residency rule had to be adhered to, and soon people were getting married again in the
‘It’s the history, the romanticism, the beauty, the rebellion, the loveconquers-all’
blacksmiths. He later introduced a gift shop and a tea room, heralding the birth of what is today, the largest privately owned and managed visitor attraction in Scotland.
The last anvil priest to perform at Gretna Green was Richard Rennison, who carried out 5,147 marriage ceremonies in his lifetime and who some of the staff remember to this day. A great storyteller, he boasted of how he once found eight couples on his doorstep begging to be married. However, following the outlawing of marriage by declaration in Scotland in 1940, his trade came to an abrupt end and Gretna Green hosted only blessings until the laws softened again in the 1970s.
Alasdair and Susan’s parents took on the business in the early 1960s and worked very
hard, on a shoestring, to put Gretna Green on the global map as one of Scotland’s foremost visitor attractions, even going as far as to stage the theft of the famous anvil as a PR stunt.
Since then, the wedding business has grown steadily, with the Famous Blacksmiths Shop hosting around 1,700 weddings in 2017, ranging from civil ceremonies for two people with witnesses provided, to all-singing, all-dancing affairs for up to 200 guests. What they all have in common is being part of an ‘unbroken thread of romantic history’, Alasdair explains.
‘It’s the history, the romanticism, the beauty, the rebellion, the loveconquers-all. I’d say there’s nowhere else in the world you could choose for your wedding that locks your story with one of Scotland’s most iconic stories – it’s been going on for 250 years.’
Bolstering the accommodation offer has been an important aspect of the evolution of Gretna Green weddings. In 2006, Smith’s hotel was
purchased, followed by Greens at Gretna and just last year Gretna Hall was acquired and is now undergoing a £2 million renovation. Gretna Hall was the setting for some high-profile elopements in the 19th century, including that of Lord Archibald Drumlanrig, son and heir of the Marquis of Queensberry. On 20 May 1840, he rode up to Gretna Hall with Caroline Clayton, the 17-year-old daughter of General Sir William Robert Clayton, who thought she was too young to wed. The couple went ahead and married anyway, later settling outside nearby Annan.
Gretna Green now employs 300 people, and is targeting the US, China, Germany and the UK. A major overhaul of the Famous Blacksmiths Shop is planned, and Houston has high hopes for the future. ‘It’s not an invented story; it’s there, it’s real, that’s our heritage and that’s what we do,’ says Alasdair. ‘It’s Scotland’s greatest love story.’