Dunbar, United Kingdom

The influential Northumbrian monk and scholar St Cuthbert, born around 630, was probably from around Dunbar: while still a boy, and employed as a shepherd, one night he had a vision of the soul of Saint Aidan being carried to heaven by angels and thereupon went to the monastery of Old Melrose and became a monk.

It was then a king's vill and prison to Bishop Wilfrid. As a royal holding of the kings of Northumbria, the economy centred on the collecting of food renders and the administration of the northern (now Scottish) portion of that kingdom. It was the base of a senior royal official, a reeve (later sheriff).

Danish and Norse attacks on southern Northumbria caused its power to falter and the northern portion became equally open to annexation by Scotland. Dunbar was burnt by Kenneth MacAlpin in the ninth century. Scottish control was consolidated in the next century and when Lothian was ceded to Malcolm II after the battle of Carham in 1018, Dunbar was finally an acknowledged part of Scotland.

Throughout these turbulent centuries, Dunbar's status must have been preserved because it next features as part of a major land grant and settlement by Malcolm III in favour of the exiled earl Gospatric of Northumbria (to whom he may have been full cousin) during 1072. Malcolm needed to fill a power vacuum on his south-eastern flank; Gospatric required a base from which to plot the resumption of his Northumbrian holding. The grant included Dunbar and, it can be deduced, an extensive swath of East Lothian and Berwickshire or Merse (hence March). Gospatric founded the family of Dunbar. The head of the House of Dunbar filled the position of Earls of Dunbar and March until the 15th century.

The town became successively a baronial burgh and royal burgh (1370). Cultivated rabbit warrens on the links to the east and west of the town supplied food to the royal household. In 1589, storms and windblown sand destroyed the warren on the west links.

Major battles were fought nearby in 1296 and 1650. The latter was fought during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms between a Scottish Covenanter army and English Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell. The Scots were routed, leading to the overthrow of the monarchy and the occupation of Scotland.

A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Castle Park Barracks in 1855.

The local band, Dunbar Royal British Legion Pipe Band, which was founded in 1976, has competed with success in national competitions.

On 3 January 1987, a devastating fire destroyed much of the town's historic parish church: though the fire practically destroyed the monument and left only the outer walls remaining, the church has since been rebuilt with a modern interior.