GRETNA GREEN SCOTLAND

Gretna Green
Gretna Green is located in Dumfries and GallowayGretna GreenGretna Green
Location within Dumfries and Galloway
OS grid reference NY318680
Council area
Dumfries and Galloway
Lieutenancy area
Dumfries
Country Scotland
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town GRETNA
Postcode district DG16
Dialling code 01461
Police Scotland
Fire Scottish
Ambulance Scottish
UK Parliament
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale
Scottish Parliament
Dumfriesshire
List of places UK Scotland
55.002°N 3.066°WCoordinates: 55.002°N 3.066°W
Gretna Green is a parish in the southern council area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, and is situated on the Scottish side of the borders of Scotland and England, defined by the small river Sark, which flows into the estuary of the western contiguous Solway Firth. It was historically the first village in Scotland, following the old coaching route from London to Edinburgh.[citation needed] Gretna Green railway station serves both Gretna Green and Gretna.[1] The Quintinshill rail disaster, the worst rail crash in British history. in which over 220 died, occurred near Gretna Green in 1915.

Gretna Green sits alongside the main town of Gretna.[1] Both are accessed from the A74(M) motorway and are near the border of Scotland with England.[1]

Gretna Green is most famous for weddings, following the 1754 Marriage Act, which prevented couples under the age of 21 marrying in England or Wales without their parents' consent. As it was still legal in Scotland to marry without such consent, couples began crossing the border in to Scotland.


Contents
1 Marriage
1.1 Elsewhere
2 In popular culture
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading
Marriage[edit]

Historic view of Gretna Green
Gretna's "runaway marriages" began in 1754 when Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act came into force in England. Under the Act, if a parent of a person under the age of 21 objected to the minor's marriage, the parent could legally veto the union. The Act tightened the requirements for marrying in England and Wales but did not apply in Scotland, where it was possible for boys to marry at 14 and girls at 12 with or without parental consent (see Marriage in Scotland). It was, however, only in the 1770s, with the construction of a toll road passing through the hitherto obscure village of Graitney, that Gretna Green became the first easily reachable village over the Scottish border.[2]

Scottish law allowed for "irregular marriages", meaning that if a declaration was made before two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. The blacksmiths in Gretna became known as "anvil priests", culminating with Richard Rennison, who performed 5,147 ceremonies. The local blacksmith and his anvil became lasting symbols of Gretna Green weddings.

Victorian chronicler Robert Smith Surtees described Gretna Green at length in his 1848 New Monthly Magazine serial, The Richest Commoner in England:

Few of our readers—none we should think of our fair ones—but at some period or other of their lives, have figured to themselves the features of Gretna Green. Few we should think but have pictured to themselves the chaise stained "with the variations of each soil", the galloping bustle of the hurrying postboys, urging their foaming steeds for the last stage that bears them from Carlisle to the border. It is a place whose very name is typical of brightening prospects. The poet sings of the greenest spot on memory's waste, and surely Gretna Green was the particular spot he had under consideraholy and hospitable purpose.

Since 1929, both parties in Scotland have had to be at least 16 years old, but they still may marry without parental consent. In England and Wales, the age for marriage is now 16 with parental consent and 18 without. Of the three forms of irregular marriage that had existed under Scottish law, all but the last were abolished by the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1939, which came in force from 1 July 1940. Prior to this act, any citizen was able to witness a public promise.

Gretna's two blacksmiths' shops anfor tens of thousands of weddings. Today there are several wedding venues in and around Gretna Green, from former churches to purpose-built chapels. The services at all the venues are always performed over an iconic blacksmith's anvi