Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland

A small coastal town with a turbulent past

Dunbar, which is a small town on the East Lothian coast 28 miles east of Edinburgh, may be quiet and peaceful these days, but it had a turbulent past.

Generals taking armies between England and the Scottish capital preferred the coastal route because they could keep their men supplied from the sea, and Dunbar was therefore a place to be defended or attacked, depending on whether one was Scottish or English.

In 1296 the defenders were routed by the troops of King Edward I, but things were different in 1338 when “Black Agnes”, the Countess of March and Dunbar, defended the town’s castle for six weeks from an attack led by the Earl of Salisbury. She was relieved by a raiding party from the sea.

The bloodiest battle to take placed at Dunbar was in 1650, when Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads were trapped in the town by Scottish Covenanters and outnumbered by two to one. The Scots held a strong position on Doon Hill but unwisely abandoned it in order to prepare for a battle on the plain below the hill. Cromwell spotted this move and surprised the Scots with a dawn raid that completely defeated them.

Five years later Cromwell gave the town funds to enable them to build a new harbour.