Gretna

This article is about the Scottish town. For Gretna south of the Mississippi from New Orleans, see Jefferson Parish.

Gretna, together with Gretna Green, is a border town in Dumfries and Galloway in southwest Scotland, with a population of 3400 in 2022; the name refers to grit or gravel. It's been famous as a wedding venue for over 250 years, a custom that began when English marriage laws became restrictive, so couples eloped across the border to Scotland. Those laws have modernised and there's now no legal motive for couples to come here, but it's become a tradition and the village's chief industry. There's no other reason to visit, and the village itself isn't much to look at, being carved up by busy railways and motorways, and with hordes of tourists on coach trips.

Understand

They need to get hitched at Gretna Green before cruel Sir Jasper can catch them

Protestant Britain rejected the Roman Catholic doctrine that marriage was a Sacrament that could only be conducted by a priest. To the British, the essence of marriage was the consent and mutual vow of any eligible couple. Most couples married in church, but some did so by other means. In the late 17th- and early 18th-century “irregular” weddings became the fashion, even the majority, in London and in Scotland, but not elsewhere in England.

The crucial legal point was that the wedding arrangements might be irregular, but the marriage itself (if proved) was utterly regular and binding, with all the rights and obligations so entailed. (Naturally there were all sorts of other sexual relationships, scandalous or otherwise, but those had no legal standing.) The wealthy classes got into a moral panic that their sons and daughters would be duped into marriage, with a post-pub frolic with some chancer being declared binding. This led in 1753 to “Hardwicke’s Marriage Act” which tightened control. Those marrying had to be over 21 or have parental consent, have banns proclaimed in church (which would alert the parents), and be married by an Anglican minister: hard luck on Catholics and others.

This act didn’t apply to Scotland, so if the couple could flee there they could marry, straightaway without any period to establish a legal domicile, but they’d need witnesses and a marriage certificate to wave in the face of cruel Sir Jasper when he caught up with them. A quickie-wedding industry grew up and the fashion morphed into one for eloping to Gretna Green, the Reno of Britain. Here the weddings were held “over the anvil” in the blacksmith’s shop, and still are.

Another notable centre was Port Patrick near Stranraer: Ireland had the same laws as England, so Irish couples would sail over for a quickie-wedding and be on the boat home same evening. Other border villages such as Coldstream saw some of the wedding trade, but the eastern land route was less popular than the packet ships between London and Edinburgh. Three days of upchucking beats nine days in a jolting stagecoach; and if you needed a divorce (unobtainable then in England) in order to re-marry, then you had to be in Edinburgh, to start legal proceedings and establish a domicile.

Hardwicke’s Act was repealed in 1836: English law was loosened and Scottish law was tightened, so there was less difference, and even less from 1940 when “irregular” marriage was ended in Scotland. Yet still they came! It was now tradition rather than fashion, and couples married in Gretna Green not because they were unable to do so at home, but because they chose. Some 5000 marriages are still conducted here each year. One example was Joschka Fischer (foreign minister of Germany 1998-2005) whose first marriage was here in 1967. He's now on his fifth.

Get in

1 Gretna Green Station has hourly trains from Carlisle taking 12 min, heading for Annan and Dumfries. Some then continue north to Sanquhar, Kilmarnock and Glasgow Central, taking 2 hours 30 min. It may be quicker to change in Carlisle for the London Euston - Glasgow trains, which hurtle past east of the village. The station has a ticket office and waiting room but no toilets. There is step-free access to both platforms.

Stagecoach Bus 79 / 179 runs from Carlisle every 30 mins via Longtown to Gretna (45 mins) and Annan; Bus 79 continues to Dumfries. Both English and Scottish bus passes are accepted on this route.

By road, the motorway changes its name at the border. Exit M6 at jcn 45 for Gretna, but for Gretna Green stay on for half a mile to exit at A74(M) jcn 22, which is also the turnoff for A75 towards Dumfries and Stranraer. Non-motorway traffic and bicycles should follow the old road, which parallels the M6 from Carlisle.

Get around

Gretna (the southern part) and Gretna Green (the northern, with most weddings) are only half a mile apart, so walk, trying not to trail your pristine white wedding dress.

See

"The mind pictures a pretty straggling, half Scotch, half English village, with clean white rails, upon a spacious green, and happy rustics in muffin caps, and high cheek bones, looking out for happier couples to congratulate." - Gretna extolled in 1848

• 1 Famous Blacksmith's Shop, Headless Cross, Gretna Green DG16 5EA, ☏ +44 1461 338441. Daily 9AM-5PM, summer to 8PM. Exhibition of Scots wedding traditions, and what happened to the less-than lawful. The space is often used for weddings so you'll have to work around these. It's also a self-service restaurant and bar, coach park for tours, and retail, retail, retail. Adult £6.75, conc £3.95, child £2. (updated Jan 2025)
• Gretna Green Old Parish Church is 17th century. It's 100 yards north of the railway station.
• 2 Quintinshill is a memorial to Britain's worst rail disaster, at 6:49AM on 22 May 1915. There were passing loops either side of the main double track, both occupied by freight trains. A northbound slow passenger train was therefore switched to wait on the southbound main line to allow two late-running sleepers to overtake - the first of these passed safely. The signalmen were changing shifts and overlooked the continuing obstruction, and a southbound troop train piled into it. A minute later, the second northbound sleeper hit the wreckage. Gas from a train-lighting system escaped, flames engulfed all five trains, and at least 227 people were killed.
• 3 Lochmaben Stone is a 7-foot megalith on the shore of the lowest ford on the River Esk, an obvious meeting point. Associated with the Celtic god Mabon, it's a glacial "erratic" erected into a monument around 3500 BC; this plus a smaller one are all that's left of a stone circle.
• 4 Bonshaw Tower is a 16th-century turret in Kirtlebridge village. Yes, it's a wedding venue, what else?
• See Lockerbie for Thomas Carlyle's birthplace in Ecclefechan.
• See Annan for The Devil's Porridge, brewed in Eastriggs 5 miles west of Gretna.

Do

• Courtship Maze is a small free maze behind the Blacksmith's Shop, inevitably festooned with love locks.
• Walk all the way to England. The border is the little River Sark which runs south to join the River Esk. In Gretna Green it's at the east end of Main St, in Gretna it's southeast on B7076 towards Longtown. Cameras focus on the "Scotland welcomes you" sign once visitors realise that the border bridges are prosaic and the river a muddy creek.
• Look up your ancestors: the Blacksmith's has complete records of marriages here over 120 years. See also the National Records of Scotland, which are comprehensive back to 1855.
• Football: Gretna 2008 play soccer in Lowland League, the fifth tier, at Raydale Park.

Buy

It's not far to walk

• 1 Caledonia Park (formerly Gretna Gateway), ☏ +44 1461 339028. Daily 9AM-6PM. Retail park with 50 stores and 5 cafés. Free parking, dog-friendly, some bargains, you could be in any retail park anywhere. (updated Jan 2025)

Eat

Most catering is within the hotels and wedding venues, and there's not much free-standing.

• McDhaba is an Indian at 31 Annan Rd Gretna, open daily 4:30-10PM.
• Solway Pizzeria on Main Street Gretna Green is a takeaway open daily 4-11PM.
• Caledonia Park the retail park in Gretna has various eating places.

Drink

• Queen's Head is on Gretna Green Main Street, open M-W 5-11PM, Th F 5PM-midnight, Sa noon-midnight, Su 12:30PM-11PM.

Sleep

Must be a coach party arriving

Lots of mid-range hotels, all here for the same reason.

• Prince Charlie's Cottage is a B&B on Glasgow Rd 100 yards north of the station.
• Greenlaw Guesthouse is 100 yards further east on Glasgow Rd.
• 1 Gretna Hall Hotel, Gretna Green DG16 5DY, ☏ +44 1461 338257. 1710 manor house on ten acres of gardens, accommodates weddings, family celebrations, business meetings and coach parties. Attractive exterior and slick service, some of the rooms are a let-down. B&B double £100. (updated Jan 2025)
• Hazeldene Hotel is on Gretna Green Main Street just north of the motorway.
• Smith's at Gretna Green, Gretna Green DG16 5EA (by Blacksmith's Shop), ☏ +44 1461 337007. Comfy spacious hotel. B&B double £100. (updated Jan 2025)
• Days Inn is within the service area on A74(M) a mile north of Gretna Green. It can be accessed from both directions, and from the village by B7706.
• 2 Gretna Inn, 121 Annan Rd, Gretna DG16 5DN, ☏ +44 1461 337465. Central and comfy. B&B double £100. (updated Jan 2025)
• Bojangles is a B&B at 103 Annan Rd, 100 yards west of Gretna Inn.
• Solway Lodge Hotel is next to Bojangles.
• 3 Hunter's Lodge Hotel, Annan Rd, Gretna DG16 5DL, ☏ +44 1461 338214. Grand little hotel in village centre. B&B double £90. (updated Jan 2025)
• Surrone House next to Hunter's Lodge has overnight parking for motorhomes.
• 4 Gables Hotel Gretna, 1 Annan Rd, Gretna DG16 5DQ, ☏ +44 1461 338300. Friendly efficient hotel within walking distance of the station. B&B double £100. (updated Jan 2025)
• Braids Caravan Park is next to Gables Hotel.
• 5 Gretna Chase Hotel, Gretna DG16 5DQ, ☏ +44 1461 337517. Plush 19th century mansion, just across the bridge in England. B&B double £100. (updated Jan 2025)

Connect

And live happily ever after

As of Jan 2025, Gretna and its approach roads have 5G from all UK carriers.

Go next

• In Annan find out what goes into "the devil's porridge", a wartime secret.
• Dumfries is where the poet Robert Burns spent his last years.
• Carlisle is a pleasant market town with a crumbly castle.
• Hadrian's Wall stretches from coast to coast, but the nearby western sections are just paths through the fields, agreeable but unremarkable. You need to go 20 miles east to reach substantial masonry, Roman camps, and the natural redoubt of Whin Sill.

Routes through Gretna

Glasgow ← Lockerbie ←	N  S	→ merges with → Carlisle → Preston
Stranraer ← Dumfries ← Annan ←	W  E	→ merges with (S)