Gretna Green the marriage ceremony. The blacksmiths in Gretna became known as "anvil priests", culminating with Richard Rennison, who performed 5,147 ceremonies. The local blacksmith and his anvil became lasting symbols of Gretna Green weddings. Two in particular, The Old Blacksmith's Shop, built around 1712, and Gretna Hall Blacksmith's Shop (1710) became, in popular folklore at least, the focal tourist points for the marriage trade. The Old Blacksmith's Shop opened to the public as a visitor attraction as early as 1887. Victorian chronicler Robert Smith Surtees described Gretna Green at length in his 1848 "New Monthly Magazine" serial, "The Richest Commoner in
Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway Gretna () is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Because they are near the Anglo-Scottish border, nearby Gretna Green, and to a lesser extent Gretna, are traditionally associated with eloping English couples because of the more liberal marriage provisions in Scots law compared to English law. "Gretna" has become a term for a place for quick, easy marriages because of this. Gretna is part of the historic county of Dumfriesshire. Gretna means "(place at the) gravelly hill", from Old English "greot" "grit" (in the dative form greoten (which is where the -n comes from) and