"Steekit Yetts"--The Bears Gate

April 3, 2023--Traquair's entrance drive; view from ancient glass window

Our destination on Monday morning from Berwick's Golden Square was Innerleithen, a small town in Tweedsdale in the Scottish Borders.  Call it a repositioning move of sorts to reset our accommodations. 

 

April 3, 2023--the 60 Bus with Eildon Hills in background

We were under pack this time...and on the bus.  We weren't scheduled to pick up the notorious e-208 Peugeot at Galashiels from Enterprise until the following day, Tuesday.  (They were closed that Monday.)  So we aimed to spend an overnight stay in Innerleithen at the Traquair Arms Hotel, and take a walk out to the famous Traquair House.  

 

A word or two on bus connections.  Rail schedules are difficult enough; but British bus schedules? They are notoriously hard to decipher.  Once you unlock them, though, it is quite possible without too much trouble to travel to most places on a vacation to Britain using only buses or rail.  The biggest hurdle perhaps is that bus lines are privatized, whereas most inner city buses are not.  There's no standardization, for lack of a better.  A number of bus companies compete for your fare.     

 

April 3, 2023--River Tweed valley at Innerleithen

Our itinerary (which we researched in advance) had us on the 8:05 Bus 60 from Berwick's Golden Square to the Galashiels Exchange.  Then, under pack, a quick 2-minute lay over to transfer to the 9:55 Bus X62 arriving High Street, Innerleithen at 10:23 a.m.  It was tight, but we made it.

A note in passing about Bus 60.  As it turned out, we would cover much of the same route again in the Peugeot rental a couple days later.  Bus 60 served as an orientation, which was handy.  Watching how the driver dealt with parked cars and oncoming traffic in Greenlaw and Gordon certainly helped us navigate.

 

April 3, 2023--Darla on the Tweed Bridge

As for the X62, the bus driver graciously dropped us off at the Co-Op rather than High Street.  This saved us a goodly number of footsteps.  So, we were arrived at Innerleithen late-morning. We were early, well in front of check in. 

We made our way to the Traquair Arms Hotel around the block from the Co-Op, and arranged to drop our packs there.  We then continued unencumbered to Traquair House.  Not too terrible a stretch, perhaps as much as 2-miles one way.

April 3, 2023--Tweed Bridge

April 3, 2023--Quair Water bridge

We crossed the River Tweed on the old Peebleshire Bridge, erected in 1886 and still carrying traffic albeit a single lane.  The bridge was riveted steel work, put in mid to late Victorian.  It would be another 30 or 40 years before welding was widely practiced, and that mostly driven by innovations during the Great War.  For example, the first all-welded hull was the HMS Fulagar, launched in February 1920 with its keel laid in 1917.  Regardless, the bridge was pretty cool. 

There are probably a number of ways to get to Traquair House.  The way we went, along Quair Water, was likely not the preferred route.  It was somewhat like entering the grounds from the back of the house. Near the house where paths join was a sculpture of a giant pencil cut from a blow down with a postcard in support of Ukraine.  That, we did not expect to find.

 

April 3, 2023--the pencil

After orienting ourselves, we approached the house and were told we needed to get admission tickets to the house, grounds and museum from a guard station located at--the front of the house on the ancient tree lined grand entrance that has not been used as such for several hundred years.  And that brings us to the famous "Steekit Yetts" (stuck gates) of The Bears Gate.  Here legend has its play. 

 

April 3, 2023--Traquair estate drive

The Bears Gate is thought to have been commissioned by the 4th Earl of Traquair at a cost of £12. 15s for its building, £10. 4s for the carving of the bears, and 4 gallons of ale for the workmen who erected them in 1738-1739.  The gate would have been in use a short while, 6 or 7 years before being permanently shut.

 

It is said that in 1745 "Bonnie Prince Charlie” rode out of the gates at Traquair House to reclaim his throne.  His cousin and staunch supporter, who is also called Charles Stuart, 15th Earl of Traquair ordered the gates at the top of the driveway to be shut until a Stuart returned to the throne.  Unfortunately, a few months later the Jacobite army met with disaster at Culloden in April 1746.  The gates have been shut ever since.  Or, that's one story.

 

April 3, 2023--The Bears Gate

 
Another story is perhaps better documented.  It is found in "Innerleithen & Traquair, Past and Present:  with an angler's guide to the Tweed and its tributaries" published in 1867--roughly 70 years after the events occurred.  Closer in time, so to speak.  In it, it is claimed that the gate was actually shut in 1796 by the 7th Earl of Traquair when the funeral cortege of his Countess passed through it.  He vowed to keep the gate shut until another Countess of Traquair was brought home.

 

Broken hearts, either way.  The gate remains shut.