A Fat Runner's Guide to The Lowry Trail

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There has been a nice spot of annual leave this week although I have had a bit of a running quandary. The recent tetchy calf has been healing nicely and I have been itching to do another feature run but was a bit worried about doing too much too soon. Fortunately, I had an excellent shorter activity on the back burner which was The Lowry Trail in Berwick Upon Tweed. This was something that I had been planning with trail biker and excellent East Lothian blogger Coastrider. I sent Bruce a quick message and we agreed that separate accounts may be more interesting. I am a big Lowry fan and have visited the gallery in Salford on a couple of occasions. It did seem fitting to see the pictures and locations of where the great man spent his holidays. It also seemed fitting to trundle round the eight or nine miles as part of my own staycation. The trail splits neatly into two with a Berwick town section and then after crossing The Tweed, a quick yomp round Tweedmouth and down the coast to Spittal.

The beach has featured on many local postcards and the original of “The Sea” is hung

in Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow. I particularly like the latter as it shows the depth of the man’s talent away from his more industrial scenes. It makes sense that he should do something very different on his holidays.I did the points in order (obviously) and quickly had that familiar rush of bagging checkpoints. After the first couple on Bridge Street (which has a great bar The BarrelArms Ale House, A micro- brewery and a great second hand book shop), I ran about a mile or so towards the pier and the beach. These are some of the more well known works of Lowry. e next section took me round the town walls. The development and history of the defences was well documented and led to the end of Berwick’s rather chaotic existence. Stability has existed for a few hundred years now however the English town still feels a bit mixed up. Berwick Rangers play football in the Scottish League and the Berwickshire Advertiser were reporting on local boy Guy Learnmouth’s performance in the Commonwealth Games for Scotland

The top of the wall faces down towards the Town Hall which was Lowry’s first painting in Berwick and symbolises the

highest building in the area. From there, I ran to Bridge End and over the river to Tweedmouth. This next section was a sharp contrast of harbour, beach, and promenade. The painting’s give a real feeling of the coast and the holiday atmosphere which Lowry must have witnessed. I particular like the girl with the red hat on Spittal Promenade (below)

. Sadly, I missed one checkpoint called “backstreets” as I simply couldn’t find it. Even resorting to google couldn’t help me find the street it was supposed to be on. Nonetheless it had been a very enjoyable day. The running was not challenging and following the trail proved to be a great way to see Berwick.It is a great celebration of Lowry’s paintings and is characteristic of the manner in which he brought his art to ordinary people. The marker boards give great explanations of how some of the paintings relate to other Lowry art and there is a sense of pride about how the artist has used Berwick to diversify his work. I really liked the way that each picture was placed at the exact location where the artist would have sat. A fantastic way to

salute an artist and the town he loved to visit. I will definitely do this again and recommend anyone wanting a nice walk or easy run to do the same.

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