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Issue 28 - The Borders – break for the Borders

History & Heritage

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Scotland Magazine Issue 28

Scotland Magazine Issue 28
September 2006

 

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The Borders – break for the Borders

Charles Douglas investigates Scotland's historic Border country

The Borders – break for the Borders (Issue 28)
The definition Scottish Borders is misleading since not all of the counties encompassed within its boundaries ajoin England.

With its headquarters at Newtown St Boswell, the region today incorporates the former districts of Berwickshire, Roxburgh, Ettrick and Lauderdale and Tweedale, thereby encompassing approximately 1,800 square miles.

The Borders of Scotland, however, provide a dazzling alternative to the better known mountain landscapes of the Scottish Highlands.

Visitors motoring from England to Scotland will travel on the M6, diverting onto the A74(M) towards Beattock and Moffat, and west towards Glasgow. Those travelling across the Borders will take the A7 towards Langholm in Dumfriesshire, then find themselves passing through Hawick and Selkirk. From Carter Barr, the A68 travels on to Jedburgh. From Berwick-upon-Tweed on the eastern coastline, the A1 runs north to Dunbar and eventually Edinburgh.

Once over Carter Bar, the initial impression may appear to be of a bleak, unpopulated landscape dotted with sheep, but as Jedburgh, in the gentle valley of the Jed Water, comes into sight the surroundings become increasingly wooded and more welcoming.

The red sandstone Jedburgh Abbey was founded in 1138 by David I for Augustinian canons from Beauvais in France, but since the ensuing years brought many English invasions, only ruins remain. In 1516, Mary Queen of Scots passed this way to visit her lover and future husband Lord Bothwell at Hermitage Castle.

To the west is Hawick, where the River Teviot meets the Slitrig Water, and here the Scottish textile industry has its largest Borders centre.

Every June, Hawick celebrates one of the oldest Common Ridings – annual events celebrated in Border towns to commemorate the times of the past when local men risked their lives in order to protect their town and people.

Wilton Lodge, ancestral home of the Langlands Family, houses the Hawick Museum and Art Gallery, and with song and verse, reveals why Borderers are so fiercely proud of their heritage.

Selkirk is another ancient royal burgh which overlooks the Yarrow Valley and annually commemorates a Common Riding tradition that after the Battle of Flodden in 1513 only one man out of 80 returned.

Mungo Park, the explorer of Africa, was born at nearby Foulshields in 1771, and his statue stands in the High Street. Nearby is the 9th Duke of Buccleuch’s ancestral home of Bowhill, famous for its collection of rich tapestries, silver and paintings.

To the north, towards Edinburgh, is Lauder where the Maitland family has held land for centuries. William Maitland was secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, and his nephew was created 1st Earl of Lauderdale in 1642. In 1660, the 1st and only Duke of Lauderdale, secretary of state for Scotland in 1660, instructed the architect Sir William Bruce to create the imposing mass which today reflects the magnificent baroque taste of that time.

Thirlestane Castle is today the home of Lauderdale’s descendant, Captain Gerald Maitland Carew, and on display are exhibits illustrating various aspects of Borders country life, tradition, folklore and land-use.

In the history of the Borders there are four literary giants – in the last century, John Buchan and Hugh McDiarmid; in the late 18th and early 19th century, James Hogg, known as ‘the ettrick Shepherd,’ and the greatest of them all, Sir Walter Scott.

Scott was born in Edinburgh, but spent his summer holidays at his grandfather’s farm at Sandyknowe, near Smailholm. Following in his father’s footsteps, he was destined for a career in law, but from an early age he led a double life. This involved venturing forth into the deepest folds of the countryside to study the manners of the people of the land – even the exploits of witches, ghosts and fairies were revelations so far as he was concerned.

Abbotsford, built on the site of an old farmhouse called Cartleyhole, at Melrose, remains the shrine of his imagination. It was designed for him by William Atkinson and the result was a mock-Tudor baronial extravaganza of turrets and gables, a fore-runner to the late 19th century fad for Scottish baronial.

Sir Walter died in 1832, and lies buried at Dryburgh Abbey on the left bank of the River Tweed, close to Abbotsford. He is in good company, lying alongside Hugo de Morville, Constable of Scotland in the 12th century, and Field Marshall Lord Haig, the First World War commander whose own family home is close by at Bemersyde.

In 1834, the 12th Earl of Buchan erected a statue to commemorate Scotland’s great guerrilla fighter Sir William Wallace and this stands near the Abbey overlooking the river.

Borders legend has it that King Arthur and his Round Table knights sleep under the Eildons, and that one day they will ride again. There is also a tradition that these three hills were once as one until split into three by a 12th-century Borders wizard, Michael Scott.

Dominating the local landscape, there is a magical quality to these hills. From the highest summit (1385ft), Sir Walter Scott observed that he could ‘point out 42 places famous in war and peace.’ Borders mill towns – grey chimneys, narrow streets – fail to deflect attention from the glorious scenery that surrounds them. Galashiels is one such busy manufacturing hub which grew out of the 19th century textile industry. In 1537, a troop of English soldiers was surprised here by a party of local youths while picking wild plums and all were killed. From this tale, Galashiels takes its slogan ‘Wild Plums,’ and each year this event is celebrated by the Braw Lad’s Gathering.

From Galashiels, to the west, along the twisting banks of the River Tweed, beloved by fishermen, there is a sense of timelessness in the enfolding landscape. From the top of Dunslair Heights, approached on foot from the little town of Innerleithen, the view becomes a rolling sea of hills as far as the eye can see.

The town of Peebles is a popular holiday resort with nearby Traquair House said to be the oldest continually inhabited house in Scotland. The beautiful gardens at Kailzie are also worth a visit.

At Tweedsmuir, towards the Devil’s Beef Tub and Moffat, a steep and narrow road climbs into the spectacularly lonely Nithsdale Hills, skirting the man-made reservoirs of Tala and Meggat. Its destination is Cappercleuch on the western shore of St Mary’s Loch. On all sides, converges the richly planted Ettrick Forest.

Returning west to Galashiels, on the road to the east is the market town of Kelso, where Floors Castle, the ancestral home of the 10th Duke of Roxburghe is a major visitor attraction. It also gained celebrity as the ancestral home of Tarzan in the 1983 film Greystoke.

Nearby is 12th century Kelso Abbey which in 1545 was used as a stronghold against the invading Earl of Hertford. The hundred defenders, including the monks, were ruthlessly slaughtered and the abbey destroyed.

From Coldstream, close to the English Border, the A69 twists and turns towards Duns, believed to have been the birthplace of Duns Scotus (1266- 1308), a Franciscan who became a celebrated medieval philosopher.

Throughout this region there are countless great mansions and Border strongholds. At Duns there are two: Duns Castle, originally an ancient tower house acquired by the Hay Family, and elegant Manderston, built for Sir James Miller, son on an industrialist who had amassed a great fortune trading with Russia.

Another great Berwickshire house, north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, is Paxton, built in 1772 by Patrick Home. It has now become an outpost of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Along the east coast, the A1 north passes St Abbs and Coldingham, with the Lammermuirs to the distant west.

This is an extraordinarily rich and beautiful region of Scotland with so much to offer the visitor, and with plans afoot to reopen the railway line between Edinburgh and Galashiels by 2008, a visit to the heart of the Scottish Borders will become an even more desirable treat to have in store.