Before compulsory education, there seems to have been very little difference in the speech of the Scottish and English borderers.

The answers, of course, might turn out to be trivial and obvious. The accent divide [across the Anglo-Scottish border], for instance, is probably quite recent. Local children have the accent of their primary school: pupils at Bewcastle School sound English while pupils at Newcastleton School, six miles away in Scotland, sound Scottish. Before compulsory education to the age of fourteen, there seems to have been very little difference in the speech of the Scottish and English borderers.

G. Robb, The debatable land (2018), 21