Morebattle is a village in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...

area of Scotland, on the B6401, seven miles south of Kelso, Scottish Borders, beside the Kale Water, a tributary of the

River Teviot The River Teviot (; gd, Abhainn Tìbhiot), or Teviot Water, is a river of the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, and is the largest tributary of the River Tweed by catchment area. The Teviot is an important river for wildlife, especially the A ...

. The

St. Cuthbert's Way St Cuthbert's Way is a long-distance trail between the Scottish Borders town of Melrose and Lindisfarne (Holy Island) off the coast of Northumberland, England. The walk is named after Cuthbert, a 7th-century saint, a native of the Borders ...

long distance footpath A long-distance trail (or long-distance footpath, track, way, greenway) is a longer recreational trail mainly through rural areas used for hiking, backpacking, cycling, horse riding or cross-country skiing. They exist on all continents exc ...

passes through the village. Surrounding villages include Cessford and Eckford to the west;

Linton Linton may refer to: Places Australia * Linton, Victoria Canada * Linton, Ontario * Linton, Quebec United Kingdom England * Linton, Cambridgeshire * Linton, Derbyshire * Linton (near Bromyard), Herefordshire * Linton (near Ross-on-Wye), Her ...

to the north; Town Yetholm and Kirk Yetholm to the east; and Hownam and Mowhaugh to the south.

History

The place-name comes from the Anglian ''mere-bōðl'' - "dwelling place by the lake" (Linton Loch). No evidence of any battles (the simplistic origin) exists. Morebattle parish church is noted as being in the diocese of Glasgow from approximately 1116.Morebattle
, www.cheviotchurches.org It stands on a prominence overlooking the Kale Water. The building was engulfed by fire in 1544 and rebuilt. The present structure dates mostly from the 1750s with extensions being erected in 1899 and 1903 by Hardy & Wight. The village has a "Teapot Street" which according to local legend (unlikely to be true) was named by Sir Walter Scott, who, passing through the village one day, noticed the wives in the street carrying teapots to the nearby Kale Water to picnic, and remarked, "that must be Teapot Street." Linton Loch was a substantial loch between Morebattle and

, but it was drained as part of the 19th century agricultural improvements in the area.History of Morebattle
www.morebattle.bordernet.co.uk

Dialect of Morebattle

The distinctive traditional Southern

Scots Scots usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: * Scots language, a language of the West Germanic language family native to Scotland * Scots people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland * Scoti, a Latin na ...

dialect of Morebattle was the subject of a study by Swiss

dialectologist Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their assoc ...

Rudolph Zai, published in 1942.Zai, Rudolf (1942). ''The Phonology of the Morebattle Dialect (East Roxburghshire)''. Lucerne: Räber.

Famous residents

* James Thomson, the Ednam poet, was born in Morebattle. * Robert Davidson, poet, lived and was buried in Morebattle, where he is commemorated.

Morebattle Hillfort

On the summit Morebattle Hill, half-a-mile south of the village, is the remains of an Iron Age hillfort ().Morebattle Hill 1
RCAHMS, retrieved 12 May 2014 The fort is shaped like an elongated letter D, with its main axis lying northeast to southwest. The fort measures 190 metres in length by 70 metres in greatest width within a single rampart. The remains of a small settlement can be seen at the northeast end of the fort. About 400 metres to the northeast, on a spur of the hill (), is a second smaller fort, largely levelled by cultivation.Morebattle Hill 2
RCAHMS, retrieved 12 May 2014 It originally measured 70 metres by 50 metres within double ramparts. The northeast end has been destroyed by a later quarry.

References

External links