ST ABBS

With its craggy coastline, steep cliffs, and generous scattering of sea stacks, the Berwickshire coastline in Scotland’s southeast has historically provided perfect cover for illicit goings on.

You can still just about make out the steps carved into land that ascended from the shore right up to the headland in some places, where smugglers would haul their cargo up and out of the line of sight of customs officers under the cloak of darkness.

Contraband in these parts in the 18th century was most often tea, but also sometimes brandy and tobacco, and one of the most