Gretna Green,

Gretna Green, a village of Dumfriesshire, near the head of the Solway Firth, 10 miles NNW. of Carlisle. After the abolition of Fleet marriages by Lord Hardwicke's Act (1754), English persons wishing to marry clandestinely had to get out of England, to which alone that act had reference. Thus the practice arose of crossing the Border into Scotland, where Gretna Green, or Springfield, as the first village, had by 1771 become, in Pennant's words, 'the resort of all amorous couples whose union the prudence of parents or guardians prohibits.' The 'priest' or 'blacksmith' might be any one—ferryman, toll-keeper, or landlord; his fee might be anything from half a guinea to £100; and 'church' was commonly the toll-house till 1826, and afterwards Gretna Hall. At the toll-house nearly 200 couples were sometimes united in a twelvemonth. Coldstream and Lamberton, in Berwickshire, were chapels-of-ease to Gretna for the eastern Border, as also till 1826 was Portpatrick, in Wigtownshire, for Ireland. One of the earliest Scottish runaway matches on record is Richard Lovell Edgeworth's (1763); amongst his successors were Lords Brougham, Dundonald, Eldon, and Erskine, besides numerous scions of the noble families of Villiers, Fane, Beauclerc, Coventry, Paget, &c. In 1856 all irregular marriages were rendered invalid unless one of the parties had been residing in Scotland for three weeks previously; this proviso observed, a Gretna Green marriage is still possible. See P. O. Hutchinson's Chronicles of Gretna Green (2 vols. 1844).