Crowd of hundreds welcomes Queen at harbour

Published on Thursday 2 July 2009 21:48

HUNDREDS of well-wishers turned out to greet the Queen yesterday as she rounded off a week of engagements in Scotland.

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh were cheered as they arrived at Eyemouth Harbour in Berwickshire in the morning.

They were shown around the town's maritime museum by founder Andrew Thornhill, where they saw its collection of restored boats and maritime artefacts.

A walkabout on the harbour front then followed, with a performance given by the Eyemouth Royal National British Legion pipe band.

The royal couple met the crew of the local RNLI lifeboat, the Barclaycard Crusader, who spoke about their work.

The Queen then chatted with members of the public among the estimated crowd of 500 in the harbour area.

The half-hour trip finished with a walk around the nearby fishermen's mission, where the Queen met staff and signed the visitors' book before she left.

Earlier, the royal couple toured the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick, where they met staff who talked them through its exhibition.

The day marked the end of Royal Week, a traditional period set aside each year for the royal couple to carry out engagements in Scotland.

This year's programme of engagements saw the Queen become the first serving British monarch to visit the site of the Battle of Culloden. She also hosted a garden party for 8,000 guests and visited the Scottish Parliament to mark the 10th anniversary of devolution.