Berwick-upon-Tweed’s Fascinating Food History

If you had lived in the Scottish Borders in the 1840s and had a modest income as most people did, your diet would have been mostly oatmeal and potatoes with the addition of milk (and in a few parishes cheese) and garden vegetables. Bread was occasionally used, but butcher-meat very rarely. In the Scottish Borders, the most common meat was pork (or bacon or ham), the labouring classes rarely saw beef or mutton, except for dead or diseased sheep, though I suspect many may have eaten fish or rabbit.

Borders Family History Society's next meeting is on Sunday, 27th April, at 2.30pm in Coldingham Village Hall, Coldingham, TD14 5NL, when Derek Sharman will talk about Berwick-upon-Tweed’s fascinating food history. 

The Victorian period was a period of change and innovation in farming, fishing and the producing, processing and selling of food and drink.  It was also the heyday for Berwick’s trade in barley, herring and salmon. The town is full of reminders of its food-producing heritage - old salmon fishing shiels, ice-houses, herring yards, smokehouses, breweries, granaries and maltings. This talk offers fascinating glimpses into that time through a selection of extracts from local newspapers and photographs from the Berwick Record Office collection. 

I think you'll find this a very interesting talk whether you're interested in family history, local or social history and you're welcome to attend the talk whether you are a member or not.

Doors open at 2pm; the meeting begins at 2.30pm. It’s free to come in.

They'll have a range of family history publications available to buy, and there’ll be light refreshments (donation expected) available after the talk.
If you have a problem with your family history, please discuss it (no charge) with one of their volunteers.