St Abbs Head is the point at which a coastline which has headed generally northwards from The Wash turns to head west into the Firth of Forth. It is formed by an extinct volcano and is the best known landmark along the Berwickshire coastline.

The name of St Abbs is much older then the village that bears it. In the late 630s a Northumbrian Princess called Ebba was shipwrecked on the headland now known as St Abbs. She was taken in as a nun in the joint nunnery and priory in Coldingham and later became Mother Superior, and still later a Saint, St Ebba. St Abbs is simply the name by which St Ebba is remembered.

By the mid 1800s St Abbs had become a busy fishing harbour.    In 1862 it acquired a lighthouse built by David & Thomas Stevenson. This was built, unusually, below the highest part of the headland. The main building in the harbour itself is the lifeboat station, which was first established here in 1911.

Though small, there are two distinct parts to the village of St Abbs which grew up around the harbour. The harbour itself and the lower part of the village forms one. Here you can wander the quays and watch the boats, the divers (humans and birds) who frequent the harbour, or simply the sea and the surrounding rocks.

The lower village is overlooked from the cliffs by lines of what were originally fishermen's cottages running parallel to the cliff edge.  The other end of the upper part of the village concludes with the church and a large stone mansion enjoying superb clifftop views.

Three miles west of St Abbs Head itself is Fast Castle. All that remains today are the ruins of a castle built in the 1500s, on the site of one that dated back to the 1300s. It stands on a headland of rocks surrounded on all sides by cliffs. It was once accessed only via a drawbridge over a 6m wide chasm dropping directly to the rocks below.  

St Abbs Head is home to thousands of nesting seabirds in summer, and a whole range of other wildlife. A new remote camera facility allows visitors to the Nature Reserve Centre to watch the nesting birds.

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