Walls Races History

It all began in the mid '70s with an idea of David Campbells who trained local runners in Berwick.

His idea was to have a race around the old Fortress walls of Berwick.

David being involved in the A.A.A. asked some of the top runners in the Northeast & Borders of Scotland to race around the old walls of the town.

The race itself started in the Palace Green area of the town then Silver Street on to Bridge Street.

Then the long climb up Bankhill on to the walls doing a complete circuit of the walls and back to the Palace Green. The race was over five laps a total of six and quarter miles.

 In 1980 Berwick Harriers had taken over the running of the walls races and over the next few years more races were added to the programme, with juniors also womem and veterans, a total of eleven races.

 By this time David had sadly passed away before seeing his idea had become one of the largest events on the British road race calendar. By the late '80s there were 1200 runners competing in the races. Moving on to the mid '90s

by this time the race programme was down to three races with less runners coming to Berwick. The race committee were having problems with sponsorship, so in 2002 the race committee regrettably decided after 29 years to bring this famous event to a end.

Some very well kown runners have competed at this event over the years here are some of the names.

Men: M. Mcleod. M. Tagg. T. Simmons. D. Black. N. Muir. G. Forster.

P. Cuskin. J. Robson. Women: J. Smith. D. Nagle. Y. Murray. J.Hunter.

A young 17 year old lad called Steve Cram won the youths race in 1978

they all competed at internatonal level.

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