Duns

Duns is a small town in the Scottish Borders, the southern border country of Scotland, and belongs to the wider Teviotdale district. The surrounding land is open pastoral country under an oceanic climate, and wool gave the locality its economic focus. The earliest settlement lay on the slopes of Duns Law, a hill that carries the remains of an Iron Age hillfort. The first written mention of Duns is before 1179, when a Hugo de Duns witnessed a charter, and Duns Castle was built nearby in 1320 by the Earl of Moray, nephew of Robert the Bruce.

Duns lay on the main road of English raiders heading north, and it was attacked and burned repeatedly, in 1544, 1545 and 1558 during the Rough Wooing. In 1377 an English army camped at Duns was routed by the townsmen after its horses were frightened at night by the rattles used to scare birds from the crops, an event that gave the town its motto. James IV created Duns a burgh of barony in 1490, with a Wednesday market and a week-long annual fair. By 1588 the town had moved from the top of Duns Law to its present site at the foot. In 1639, during the First Bishops’ War, the Covenanting army under General Leslie mustered at Duns and fortified Duns Law against King Charles I’s army at Berwick.