At the turn of the 20th century, Charles G. Harper, a prolific writer of illustrated travel books, traced the history of roads across Britain. His passage about the Sark Toll Bar in The Manchester to Glasgow Road, literally the first stop over the Scottish border and half a mile before Gretna Green, show how commercialised elopement became and how cut-throat was the competition for the custom of runaway couples.
Gretna stands to all the world for runaway matches, but although by far the most popular place, it was by no means the only one. Any spot on the long lonely seventy miles of Border served the same purpose, and Lamberton Toll, north of Berwick, and Coldstream were not without their advantages, especially from Newcastle-on-Tyne, to which they lay quite handy. The future Earl of Eldon, who ran away as a lad with is Bessie Surtees, got married at Lamberton or at Coldstream.
On this West Coast, however, on the “new” road to Gretna, the actual crossing of the Border is at the passage of the little river Sark, half a mile before you come to that more famous hamlet. Although Gretna is pre-eminently famed, and Springfield, just short of it, comes second in popular estimation, a very good case might be made out for giving Sark Bar prominence in this strange history.
It is nothing but an old toll-house on the north, or Scottish side of the border. But there’s the rub. It was the first spot on Scottish soil, and much virtue accordingly attached to it. The name of Gretna obscured those of all other places in the minds of strangers, but those on the spot, together with every post-boy between Carlisle and the Border, knew better; and those runaways who were so hard-pressed that an extra half-mile on to Springfield or Gretna meant all the difference between success and failure had cause to bless Sark Toll Bar, or Alison’s Bank Bar, as it is sometimes called. This was the inimical spot to parents and guardians, and a sad illusion to all pursuers. Here fathers, hot on the heels of fugitives, were commonly foiled in the very cynthia of the minute. At the moment of triumphantly thinking they would, in that further half-mile, overtake their prey, Simon Beattie, the toll-keeper, was spiriting the fluttering young things into his innocent-looking toll house, and in the presence of the necessary two witnesses, including the grinning post-boy, was asking them the simple questions that sufficed: “Were they single?” and “Did they wish to become man and wife?” It was all over by the time the foaming enemy was cursing and kicking outside the barred and bolted door; and when Beattie unbolted it and introduced the newly-wed, there was nothing to do but look pleasant, or perhaps in extreme cases give young hopeful a horse-whipping; which, after all, was scarcely politic.
Simon Beattie, between four o’clock on a Saturday and the Sunday evening following, in November 1842, married no fewer than forty-five couples at Sark Toll Bar, and his successor, John Murray in one night performed the same office for sixty-one. No wonder Murray thought it possible to amass a fortune here. He reared the “Sark Bar” in close by, on the English side of the Sark but he had not finished it when Lord Brougham’s Act, of 1856, ruining all these fugitive proceedings, came into operation; and there was an end of his hopes.
But it was evidently in existence in 1852, for it is referred to in an article in Household Worlds of that year, written by Blanchard Jerrold, who describes how he left Carlisle by train and came to Gretna station, where he alighted and found a couple who alighted at the same time being “addressed eagerly by one or two men of common appearance. Are these individuals making offers for the conveyance of the couple’s luggage? The station-master looks on at the warm conference with a sardonic grin; and with a quick twitch of the head, draws the attention of the guard to the interesting group. The train goes forward, and the conference breaks up. One of the men conducts the lady and gentleman to the little red-brick hotel close by; and the others retire discontentedly. I inquire about this rivalry, and am informed that it is a clerical contest. The little red-brick hotel is the property of Mr. Murray, who also inhabits the famous toll-bar which is on the Scotch bank of the stream. Thus this sagacious toll-keeper pounces upon the couple at the station; removes them to his ‘Gretna Hotel,’ and then drives them down a narrow lane, and over the bridge to the toll-bar, where he marries them. In this way, it appears Murray has contrived to monopolise five-sixths of the trade matrimonial. It is to be observed, however, that there is a Gretna station, and a Gretna Green station, and that the latter is the point which deposits many happy couples opposite Gretna Hall.
Charles G. Harper, The Manchester and Glasgow Road: This Way to Gretna Green. Chapman & Hall, London, 1907
Writer Joanna Waugh, whose website collates resources for writers of Regency romance, points her users to a useful page of resources for researching the Great North Road – which was, of course, a route much used by elopers to Gretna Green.