Kershope Burn
Kershope Burn is a burn im the Cheviot Hills running in its entirety along the southern boundary of Roxburghshire; its first mile or so divides Roxburghshire from Northumberland and in the rest of its course from Cumberland.
The river rises, as Clark's Sike, in a marshy area on the county boundary at the western edge of Northumberland’s Kielder Forest known as Hobb's Flow. Clark’s Sike flows down from here, gathering numerous burns from the hillsides and beginning to carve a valley. About a miles below Hobb’s Flow, the southern bank changes form being Northumberland to Cumberland. It becomes the ‘Kershope Burn’ after running by Kershopehead, a farmstead in Cumberland. Here its valley is steep, and separates the Newcastletown Forest to the north from the Kershope Forest to the south.
The name ‘Kershope’ is from the Old English / Scots word for a valley, ‘hope’, and so the river is named from the valley, not the valley from the river.
At 55°9’36"N, 2°45’0"W the river separates farmsteads known as ‘Scots Kershope’ to the north (Roxburghshire) and ‘English Kershope’ to the south (Cumberland).
At the hamlet of Kershopefoot (55°8’18"N, 2°49’32"W) the river enters Liddesdale and runs into Liddel Water, after which Liddel Water assumes the duty of marking the boundary.
In the final yards of the river past Kershopefoot, the ruver passes underneath the railway bridge of the former Waverley Line. Between 1862 and 1969 a passenger station variously known as Kershope or Kershope Foot was located here.[1]
