Berwick Barracks – King’s Own Scottish Borderers Regimental Museum

The entrance to Berwick Barracks, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland.

The barracks were designed by the eminent architect Nicholas Hawksmoor and built in the early 1700s,…

…making them among the first purpose-built barracks constructed in England, even if we are only a stone’s throw from the Scottish border here.

So it may look like your average barracks, but this must have been something of a template at the time it was built.  Once inside,…

…it’s on to the museum,…

…where we first encounter these three memorial plaques.

On the left, the Great War memorial, suffering the result of too many years of relentless polishing, methinks,…

…on the right, the Second World War memorial,…

…and in the centre, a memorial remembering men who died between 1946 & 1976.

The raising of the K.O.S.B.

South Africa (above & below).

British Army rifles selection, 1700 – 1917, which leads us nicely on to the Great War exhibits, or at least the ones that caught my eye:

The Piper of Loos.  Bagpipes belonging to Piper Daniel Laidlaw, awarded the Victoria Cross on 25th September 1915 for his heroism at Hill 70 during the Battle of Loos when, before an attack on the German trenches, and beneath a horrendous gas and high explosive bombardment, he climbed on to the parapet where he marched up and down, playing the pipes, encouraging his shaken company to leave their positions and assault the enemy trenches.  Wounded, Laidlaw continued to play until the German position had been taken.

One of only two pipers to gain a V.C. during the war, Laidlaw later became something of a celebrity, even appearing as himself in the film ‘The Guns of Loos’ in 1928.

Rotated colours with Great War battle honours: Mons, Aisne 1914, Somme 1916 ’18, Arras 1917 ’18, Gallipoli 1915 ’16, Ypres 1914 ’15 ’17 ’18, Loos, Soissonnais-Ourcq*, Hindenburg Line, Gaza.

*The Battle of Soissons, 1918.

Lewis machine gun, and in the foreground the short magazine Lee Enfield rifle (1909 pattern).

On the far right of the same display, a folding trench periscope,…

…these examples put to clever use…

…to show film extracts for your pleasure.

Vickers machine gun,…

…and a Tam o’Shanter, the usual K.O.S.B. headgear, behind it on the right.  The service cap in the foreground was, we are told, only rarely issued to K.O.S.B. units.

In the background,…

…a German Maxim machine gun,…

…painted on the side with the words, ‘Captured by 5th K.O.S.B. 34th Div. 17/10/18.’

Field Marshall Douglas Haig, painted wearing a Tam o’Shanter,…

…and Haig’s mess tin.

Signed tablecloth and extract from a letter written in Mons on 16th November 1918.

Some of the World War II exhibits:

There are quite a lot of exhibits here concerning the Arnhem disaster in September 1944,…

…hardly surprising as the regiment suffered 90% casualties, killed or taken prisoner, as they defended the Arnhem perimeter against the 2nd SS Panzer Corps.

One of the supplies containers dropped to the troops at Arnhem.

German sniper’s rifle, taken from a dead German on Sicily in 1943 (the story is worth reading).

Escape map printed on a handkerchief.

This is Russian, isn’t it?  A SG43 on a Maxim carriage?  Someone tell me please!

And this one, because I’ve no idea.  Japanese, I think (no it isn’t – all explained in the comments at the end of the post – thanks Sid!).

The war in Burma, 1945.

Before we finish, we shall briefly return to Nicholas Hawksmoor.  An unconventional architect, to say the least, when it suited him, he is well worth looking into if you have a passing interest in such things (otherwise you’ll know him already).  Six churches in present-day London were wholly designed by him, all huge, predominantly white, structures that it seems you either love or loathe (and there’s always St Paul’s Cathedral – you thought that was just Wren, be honest now).  The top inset shows his monstrous Christ Church in Spitalfields – is it really a church, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing?  Steeple or obelisk?  And I wonder what he made of the Cromwellian Church of the Holy Trinity & St. Mary (bottom inset) in Berwick, this final shot, with the barracks in the background, taken from the churchyard.