The Anvil Weddings of Gretna Green

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You may know the story of the American tourist coming to an English hotel. He walks in and looks around in amazement, saying with a typical loud voice “My God! How old is this building?!” The hotel receptionist, politely in all his Britishness, answers on a more civilised tone: “Well, this is in fact the new extension. It was built in the late-1660s.”

History is always close-by in Ye Olde England, and the picture seen here is great evidence of just that. When this photograph was taken in Gretna Green in 1912, the famous Blacksmith's shop there was two centuries old and had been open to the public as a visitor attraction for a couple of decades.

The so-called Anvil Weddings still take place here every day, starting in 1830 when a bridge was built over the Sark River close by, redirecting most of the traffic that way into Scotland. Couples who had not yet reached the ripe old age of 21 but had plans to marry without their parents' consent went (and still go?) to Gretna Green to marry at haste! Oh – we may be mistaken, but the car seen here appears to have not much to do with the wedding business..?

Words by Jeroen Booij.

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