Lower Burnmouth and The Old Lobster House
Burnmouth is the last village on Scotland’s east coast before crossing the border into England. It’s also one of those divided villages with a steep, winding road down to the harbour. We booked a cottage in Lower Burnmouth for a week last July / August, and I was surprised to find that the small settlement around the harbour actually counts as four villages!
If you turn left at the bottom of the road, you end up in Partanhall.
Ahead is Burnmouth Harbour.
To the right is Lower Burnmouth (and beyond that, Ross and Cowdrait of which we have no pictures). The colourful 3 storey houses, numbers 14-20 Lower Burnmouth, were designed by the architect Basil Spence in the 1950s. The lower floors were intended to be net stores, but now serve as garages. The little white building to their left in the view from the harbour is The Old Lobster House, our home for the week, a cottage converted from an old lobster holding pen.
Here are some closer views of the exterior:
And the interior:
But what had really sold us on this cottage when we saw it online was this view from the main bedroom window:
However, when we arrived we were very disappointed to find that it looked like this:
It would be some days before high tide was at a suitable time for us to see it, i.e. not while we were out during the day or while we slept. However, we found the view endlessly fascinating and have many pictures in different conditions of weather and tide. Here’s more from the main bedroom:
From bedroom 2:
And from downstairs:
We had a wonderful week in this cottage, and did far more than just gaze at the sea, mesmerising though that was. And we learned something too. Strolling round the harbour on our first evening, we came across this sculpture:
It’s one part of a memorial to the East Coast Fishing Disaster of 1881, of which we’d never heard, and we made it our mission to track down the other three sculptures. The whole of my next post will be dedicated to the disaster.
The Glasgow Gallivanter 
This isn’t a place I’ve ever heard of, yet I’ve explored some of that coastline. It looks a very quaint little place, as does the cottage! The cottage itself looks so homely and cosy, I love it!
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It was lovely, Paul. I didn’t Know that part of the coast all that well, so it was good to spend time there.
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Funny that each spot is another town. I love the colourful houses and this place looks a bit windswept and moody. The tide is sure out when you were there but I would be nervous if there was a storm and the tide was in.
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Yeah, I wouldn’t like to be there in winter!
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Your little cottage looks so cozy, even if it was hard to get the advertised view all the time. It sounds like a nice holiday. 🙂
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It was lovely and something I look back on with extreme nostalgia now.
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I can imagine you do!
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I’d much rather have a disappointing view than a disappointing room, and the cottage itself looks lovely!
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The cottage was lovely! It would have been nice if high tide could have been arranged, say, to coincide with breakfast every day, but nature didn’t co-operate 😉. We did see it once by coming home mid-afternoon so I’m not complaining.
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Heard of looking at the tides for a walk, but to check them when booking a place to stay . . .well that’s something else!!!
What a fabulous place. I’d love it, MrB though would struggle with that ceiling in the bedroom.
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We had to make sure we got home mid-afternoon one day to catch high tide. And also, remember to be very careful when sitting up in bed in the morning! I did suffer one or two thwacks because I forgot where I was.
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Glad you did get to see it 🙂 such an amazing experience. There is something mesmerising about watching the tide come in, only though if you are in a safe place!!
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PS 🤕
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😀
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Wow, absolute seafront! This house must get seriously battered by the elements. But so cosy inside. What an interesting spot for a getaway.
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It was lovely while we were there – not sure I’d like it quite so much in winter storms, though it would be spectacular.
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Even though the view was not quite as you’d hoped, that’s still a lovely cottage to spend a vacation in! And I look forward to reading your next post to find out the story behind that sculpture. Someday, when international travel is allowed again, I really want to visit Scotland and see some of the lovely sights you share with us!!!
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We got the view in the end by returning home early one afternoon, it was worth it! The disaster story will be out tomorrow, lockdown has certainly given more time for extra blogging.
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Excellent photographs and a lovely trip. Did look up the Fishing Disaster. Some storm!! Well, not perhaps the sea, but the Spencer Gulf is only a few miles away – at the other end of town.
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It was a lovely trip. Learning about the disaster was quite sobering though.
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I recognise the style of that sculpture from the Windows & Bairns in Eyemouth. I wish I’d had the time to explore the area and history more when we were posted up in Scotland, it just turned out to be such a short spell. I shall explore vicariously via your posts!
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Yes, the Eyemouth one is much bigger, but they are all poignant. We didn’t know Berwickshire very well either, but we love it now.
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All the way through I’d been thinking thank God for people who paint things cheerful colours, because it looked so grey, Anabel… till I got to your cottage. What a nice space 🙂 🙂 And the endless enchantment of sea.
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It was such a pretty cottage! The sea was never your sort of blue, but it went through all sorts of other variations, so it was definitely enchanting.
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