Paxton Fishery
The river Tweed is the most productive salmon river in the UK with some of the highest populations of Atlantic salmon and sea trout in the country. At Paxton House, the River Tweed Commission run a specialist netting station which monitors the health and size of the fishery.
Paxton fishery
Salmon netting
Visitors to Paxton House in the summer months may be lucky to witness salmon being netted from a traditional wooden coble or small rowing boat. The fishermen drop a net in a semi-circle which is then pulled in by hand using a method which harks back to a past world when salmon fishing brought wealth to communities on the Tweed and in Berwick.
The Tweed Foundation working in partnership with the Paxton Fishery now run a research station where salmon are tagged and released back into the river. Visitors can enjoy watching this traditional activity coupled with modern scientific methods of monitoring fish stocks during summer months.
Paxton Fishery
Icehouses
Hidden in the riverbank beside the Tweed is the Victorian icehouse. in the past, salmon were stored in ice, fresh from the river, before being transported to Berwick-upon-Tweed for sale and distribution. Ice was collected from shallow places on the River Tweed and from specially flooded pools during the winter. Fresh fish on ice commanded a higher price than the pickled or salt fish sold a century earlier.
Paxton House’s own domestic ice house is hidden under the arches of the bridge. It was built a century earlier as a way of preserving food for the house and making fashionable summer desserts.