Capturing the colours of Berwick-upon-Tweed

There is nowhere quite like Berwick-upon-Tweed. It is a place that exists ‘between’ – between river and sea, England and Scotland (who thought it was worth fighting over – the town changed hands 13 times from the late medieval period until the Union of Crowns in 1603 made the point moot). The landscape surrounding the town can shift from wild and windswept to tranquil and welcoming, seemingly in an instant. On first-look, Berwick can seem colourless and forbidding with its rough stone walls and buildings – but there’s a wealth of colour, just waiting to be uncovered. And there is always a view.

A view of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland, featuring its distinctive pantiled rooves and the spire of the Guildhall

I love wandering around the town and suddenly coming upon a place where the streets drop away to the Quayside, shining brightly white in the sunshine, or a world or rooftops and chimneys butts up against the deep blue of the North Sea, stretching away to a hazy view of the castles of Lindisfarne and Bambrugh on the horizon. How the massive earthen fortifications that complement the stone walls that encircle the town, can become vividly green when the sun shines. How even the stones themselves, whilst initially seeming to be grey, on closer inspection contain veins of pink and blue and yellow and white – meaning that whole buildings can take on a different hue, depending on the strength and position of the sun.

It was this sense of colour that I wanted to capture when I started thinking about developing a series of illustrations that reflected how I saw Berwick. I wanted to create my own iconic set of colour swatches – bold blocks of colour that I could see in the landmarks around me. I ended up with 12 Colours of Berwick: Lighthouse Red, Pantile Orange, Louvre Yellow, Royal Border Bridge Stone, Bell Tower Gold, Ramparts Green, North Sea Blue, Guildhall Taupe, Bari Bear Bronze, Tweed Silver, Swan White and Cannon Black.

I used these bright pops of colour to pick out the relevant part of the landmark, in a series of 12 original illustrations, hand-drawn in black ink. Each illustration now colourfully tells a part of the story of Berwick.

These illustrations are now available on a range of products in my Colours of Berwick-upon-Tweed collection - perfect as a unique gift or holiday keepsake.