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Photo: Mick Knapton, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Rocky cliffs which are home to 60,000 seabirds and a lighthouse built by the Stevensons in 1862. Park at the NTS centre and follow the lane. Leave the car there if you later visit St Abbs village, as the road is steep, narrow and congested.
St Abb's Head is a rocky promontory by the village of St Abbs in Berwickshire, Scotland, and a national nature reserve administered by the National Trust for Scotland. St Abb's Head Lighthouse was designed and built by the brothers David Stevenson and Thomas Stevenson and began service on 24 February 1862.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Exhibition on the St Abbs area.
A Benedictine monastery was founded at St Abbs in about 640, the same time as Lindisfarne, governed by Durham. It was re-founded here in 1100 with a new church and upgraded to a priory in 1150. In 1376 it became a pawn in the Anglo-Scottish conflicts, as Robert II wrested it from Durham and awarded it to Dunfermline. Both sides appealed to the pope, who backed their cause, easily done as they recognised different popes. The priory was abandoned in 1606 after the Reformation, smashed up by Cromwell, and the ruin passed into secular hands. The present church occupies the choir of its 13th century predecessor.
Local history museum with exhibitions on farming and fishing, including the 1881 “Euroclydon” disaster when 19 fishing boats and 189 fishermen were lost.