The Beacon Dinner at St Boswells

On the evening of 31 January 1804 a beacon at Hume Castle was lit by mistake during the invasion scare, others followed, and volunteers across the south of Scotland turned out by morning, the Liddesdale men entering Kelso to their own old tune. A party of volunteers drinking at the toll-house at Ancrum Bridge rushed off when the Eildon beacon was lit and forgot to pay the reckoning. They met on the next anniversary to clear the old score and resolved to meet every year to remember the night, following the toll-keeper to Newtown and then St Boswells. Chambers reports the dinner still held at the Buccleuch Arms in 1860, when none of the original party was left.