Gretna Green – Runaway Weddings and the Devil's Porridge
A day.
The route
Gretna Green has two great stories to tell, and this day puts them side by side.
In the morning it's the runaway weddings at the Famous Blacksmiths Shop, the whitewashed smithy at the crossroads where couples from England married over the anvil. In the afternoon it's the First World War, a few miles west at Eastriggs, where the Devil's Porridge Museum tells of the vast munitions factory that once ran along the Solway and the thousands of women who worked in it.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
None of ours is close by: the nearest is The Scullery in Yarrow, 38 miles away. Sleeps 2; next free Fri 13 Nov to Sun 15 Nov.
Then The House in the Hill, 44 miles away. Sleeps 4; next free Thu 29 Oct to Sat 31 Oct.
Book the Forge Experience at Gretna Green
To strike your own coin at the Forge, book the half-hour Forge Experience online at gretnagreen.com before you go, £35 a person with a small booking fee.
The day
Gretna Green
Lunch comes between the two, at the Devil's Porridge Museum's own café in Eastriggs.
About five hours
Gretna Green Famous Blacksmiths Shop
An attraction
The Famous Blacksmiths Shop stands at the crossroads in the middle of Gretna Green, just off the A74(M), with free parking on site. It was built as a smithy in 1713 at Headless Cross, where five coaching roads met. From 1754 English law asked anyone under 21 to have a parent's consent to marry, while Scots law asked only for a declaration before two witnesses. So this became the place runaway couples raced to, and the smith heard their vows over the anvil. The museum inside reopened in 2022 after a restoration, with original love letters and marriage records, the stories of the anvil priests and a stagecoach that carried runaways. The anvil is still in the old smithy, lit by candles, and couples still marry beside it. Outside, the grounds are free to wander: the Courtship Maze, the Love Lock Wall and The Big Dance, a pair of giant clasped hands. The half-hour guided tour takes in the Maze, the sculptures and the museum, and tickets are sold on the day at the museum. Next door, the new working Forge runs a half-hour Forge Experience where you strike a coin of your own with the resident blacksmith. Dogs are welcome round most of the site, though not in the restaurants or the Larder shop. Allow an hour or two.
10 min by car
The Devil's Porridge Museum
An attraction
It's 10 minutes' drive west on the B721 to Eastriggs, one of the two wooden townships put up in the First World War for the workers of HM Factory Gretna. The Devil's Porridge Museum is here, with its car park across the road from the entrance. Lunch comes first, in the museum's café, done out in Rennie Mackintosh style, with produce from a local butcher and greengrocer, topped up with vegetables from its Dig for Victory garden, and homemade cakes and scones. The main menu runs until 2pm. Then the museum, and the factory itself. Begun in 1915, it stretched nine miles from Longtown in England to Dornock, with Gretna as its other township, and in the museum's words it was the largest munitions factory in the world. Almost 12,000 of its workers were women, and the paste they mixed for cordite is what Arthur Conan Doyle named the devil's porridge on his visit in 1916. Along the way there is a factory pass to stamp, a replica trench and Anderson shelter, and Sir James, a fireless locomotive. A few displays are loud, with explosions and music. There is a step-free way in and a lift between the two floors.
If it rains
Both museums are under a roof, and so is lunch. On a wet day keep the Maze and the sculptures at Gretna Green short and give the time to the Devil's Porridge Museum, whose two floors are all indoors.
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