Explore The Borders

Your gateway to the brilliant borderlands

David Pike

Hawick the perfect choice to revive Borders whisky tradition

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In a town built on solid and stirring traditions, the Hawick community jumped at the chance to stick a new feather in its Scottish Borders bonnet.

Internationally renowned for the manufacture of high quality textiles, Hawick is now at the heart of restoring a Borders tradition that turns the clock back over 180 years.

It was in 1837 – ​the same year that Victoria was crowned queen and young Oliver Twist made his literary debut -​ that the region’s only distillery at Kelso closed down.

Now, we are delighted to say, whisky manufacturing is back – courtesy of The Three Stills Company – and the Borders Distillery is proving to be a class act.

Locals and visitors alike were able to follow the old Turnbull and Scott factory in Commercial Road into a superb distillery and visitor centre that quickly received the highest 5* accreditation from VisitScotland.

The building’s modern open plan aspects and all the trappings of a modern distillery have been sympathetically incorporated with original industrial features – a blend that has been very well received and matches anticipation of the distillery’s single malt whisky.

And the work caught the attention of judges in the Scottish Borders in the Borders Building Design Awards for 2018, where it was listed among the best.

The distillery building’s eye catching restoration, led by architects Gray Macpherson of Edinburgh, won the award in the Existing Buildings Commercial category.

Special importance was placed on incorporating original industrial features all the trappings of a modern distillery.

Celebrating success: John Fordyce and Annie Macpherson from Gray Macpherson with the Hawick distillery’s building design commendation

The firm worked closely with the team at The Three Stills Company to develop a modern open plan building.

Distilling started in March 2018, five years after the original idea first started to take shape with John Fordyce, George Tait, Tim Carton and Tony Roberts – a quartet with plenty of experience in the drinks, spirits, and manufacturing sectors.

They all shared a vision to bring distilling back to the Scottish Borders. At Hawick, they agreed, the chemistry was just right.

The Borders Distillery has access to water from the River Teviot for cooling purposes and from an on-site borehole that goes into the spirit. There’s also a ready supply of local barley, essential ingredients for future success.

Distillery tours have become very popular and they take place Monday to Saturday, every hour, on the hour from 10am to 4pm. They are organised for groups of up to 12 people and bespoke tours are available for whisky enthusiasts

The Borders Distillery set up with a core team with huge experience in producing whisky and they are now passing those skills down to a local workforce. The present one-shift operation will eventually graduate to 24-hour production with a workforce of around 18 people.

William Kerr’s Borders Gin is also available from the distillery shop. It is produced from scratch onsite using a small amount of the same new make spirit which is distilled for single malt whisky, making it stand out in an increasingly crowded gin market.

The malty, fruity new make spirit goes through further distillation in a specially commissioned Carter Head still where eleven botanicals combine with the redistilled new make to create a gin of remarkable flavour and quality.

For now, the stills are quietly and efficiently getting on with the main job in hand, working towards the next manufacturing milestone of May 2021 when the Borders Distillery will be able to call its maturing spirit Scotch Whisky for the first time.

The first casks were laid down on May 10, 2018 and the distillery is building six warehouses in Hawick where wood and spirit can slowly interact over time.

To celebrate the return of whisky distilling to the Borders for the first time since 1837, The Borders Distillery is making 1,837 casks containing 200 litres of spirit – potentially 300 bottles of whisky – available to the public for purchase.

And plenty have been taking up the offer, stamping their names on specially imported oak casks that will deliver an exclusive single cask whisky. The cost comes in at £1995.00 and includes storage and insurance for up to ten years. Duty and VAT will have to be paid upon bottling.

The Borders Distillery is a standout award winning visitor attraction and not to be missed. To find out more and book tours … ​www.thebordersdistillery.com

Hawick’s sons of speed

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Bikers from all over the UK make a beeline for Hawick’s Wilton Park museum, to pay homage to two of the town’s sporting superstars.

A decision by Scottish Borders Council to bring together permanent exhibitions, paying tribute to motorcyclists Jimmie Guthrie and Steve Hislop, proved to be inspired.

The displays chart success at the highest levels for Guthrie and Hislop who were among the greatest motorcyclist riders of their generations and whose stories both ended in tragedy.

Jimmie Guthrie died aged 40, riding his beloved Norton motorcycle and, as usual, leading the field and thrilling a crowd of 250,000 people packed into the Sachsenring circuit in Germany.

The year was 1937 and Jimmy, who had sharpened his talent for riding motorcycles in the most dangerous circumstances, as a despatch rider on the battlefields of France during the First World War, was at the pinnacle of a glittering career.

Over the previous 10 years he had raced and beaten the best collecting 32 major titles along the way.

The Hawick flying machine won grand prix year after year in Europe and a clutch of Isle of Man TT titles. Along the way he broke six world speed records between 1934 and 1936.

He was adored by motorcycling fans, even in a Germany gripped by Nazism. The inscription on his 1936 European Grand Prix trophy carries an endorsement from the highest level – the leader and Chancellor of the German Third Reich, Adolph Hitler.

At home Jimmie ran a garage business in Hawick High Street with his brother Archie. He is said to have regularly rode to Keswick and back before starting work – the distance being almost exactly that of the Isle of Man TT course.

At the Sachsenring he was on the final lap when he came off his bike on the notorious Noetzhold corner, suffered terrible injuries and died soon afterwards. The Germans laid on a special train and a military escort as Jimmie’s body made the solemn journey home to Hawick where his funeral attracted huge crowds.

Steve ‘Hizzy’ Hislop (above left) was another “quiet lad” who let his skills on the track do the talking. He got his big break when Denholm garage owner Jim Oliver got him a ride with Honda and he didn’t disappoint.

Best remembered as a double British Superbike champion, winning the title in 1995 and 2002, Steve also recorded 11 wins at the Isle of Man TT races between 1987 and 1994.

He was as good as they come on his day when everything was running right. In 2002 he rode a faultless season and when qualifying for a championship round at Donnington Park he broke Valentino Rossi’s Grand Prix lap record – on a bike 25% less powerful.

Steve died at the age 41, when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in murky weather conditions over Teviotdale in 2003.

On show at Wilton Park are the bikes they rode, trophies and the stories of the skills and courage that took both men to the top in their sport.

Both are commemorated, too, with statues in the park next to the museum and – pandemics permitting – popular memorial annual rallies.

Admission to Hawick Museum is free. For information about opening times
please ring 01450 373457.

Reivers rule in the Border badlands

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Blood feuds, ruthless vendettas, protection rackets, cattle rustling…and no we are not talking about the mafia or the Wild West.

Welcome to the badlands of the Northumberland and Scottish Borders where the legendary Border Reivers brand of lawlessness held sway for almost 300 years.

These were the men who bequeathed bereavement and blackmail to the English language, whose power was built around family allegiances and whose brand of doing business asked for no quarter – and rarely received it.

Reiving – or stealing – was pursued enthusiastically as a means of stocking up the larder for the winter months and raids south to England or north into Scotland followed old drover trails and ancient tracks that criss-cross the wild border uplands.

Mounted on sure-footed horses bred for stamina, they perfected smash and grab tactics perfected during Scotland’s wars of independence in the 1200 and 1300s.

Famous Scottish reiver family names include Maxwell, Johnstone, Scott, Kerr, Hume, Pringle, Douglas, Armstrong, Turnbull, Elliot…and on the English side Musgrave, Charlton and Dodd.

They were resident in Marches (West, East and Middle) on either side of the border, not surprisingly dubbed the Debateable Lands.

The power of the reivers reached its peak in 1580 and over the next 20 years until the death of Elizabeth 1, recorded its most savage period.

James Vl of Scotland united the two kingdoms on the death of Elizabeth and vowed to break the power of the reivers. Soon after taking the throne in London he mounted a concerted campaign to destroy the reivers and stamp his own authority across the borderlands.

What he failed to do was eradicate the tales that became folklore and gave the Border Reivers legendary status that survives to this day.

The reivers legacy and their strongholds are still very much alive in the Borders and their descendants, now happily engaged in more peaceful pursuits, are still very much part of Borders life.

Step back into history

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If you enjoy history and exploring times gone by you will love the Borders.

The borderlands of Northumberland and the south of Scotland were fiercely fought over as the crossed swords marking local battlefields on maps of the region will show.

From the earliest times, when Agricola marched his Roman legions north from York around AD71 to Scotland, known to them as Caledonia, the borderlands have been no stranger to turbulent times.

Once part of the powerful Kingdom of Northumbria the line that separates England and Scotland first appeared in 1237, a formal border agreed between Henry III and Scotland’s Alexander II.

Troubled relations between the two kingdoms were not finally laid to rest almost 500 years later when Bonnie Prince Charlie’s ill-fated uprising in 1745 ended at Culloden.

Before that the two sides clashed on countless bloody occasions including Otterburn (1388), Flodden (1513) and Ancrum Moor (1545).

During the Wars of Independence the region was key to the aspirations of William Wallace and later Robert the Bruce, witnessing armies marching north – and armies readying to march south.

Interwoven with the high politics of warfare was the reign of the Border Reivers who had their own distinctive way of dealing with any local difficulties, north and south of the border, and held sway for over 300 years.

Infamously, they even contributed to the English language, giving us the words blackmail and bereavement!

The famous abbeys of the Scottish Borders at Jedburgh, Dryburgh, Melrose and Kelso suffered irreversible damage at the hands of Henry VIII’s rampaging soldiers in the 1540’s – the result of a right royal Tudor tantrum.

It was a time that became known as the ‘rough wooing’ and a result of the Scots refusal to ratify the betrothal of the infant Mary Queen of Scots to Henry’s son Edward, then at the tender age of seven.   

Turbulent times have, not surprisingly left a legacy of castles and fortified towers (top, magnificent Bamburgh Castle and above Fatlips Castle) all with their own story to tell.

Explore the Borders turns the clock back and revisits the history of the northern borderlands.

Face to face with history at Melrose

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A walk around the Trimontium Museum in Melrose will bring you face to face with a historic whodunit.

Staring across almost 2,000 years in time is the face of a man, thought to be a roman soldier, who came to a sticky end at Trimontium.

The victim of a drunken brawl? Maybe someone who ran up one to many gambling debts or who crossed a fellow soldier over an affair of the heart? We will never know.

One thing we do know, however, was that our mystery man was found at the bottom of a well and experts concluded that he died under suspicious circumstances because his skeleton was found almost erect with a spearhead by his side.

Some 150 years after the discovery was made the Trimontium Trust decided to bring him ‘back to life’ by reconstructing his face.

The idea came from Trust chairman Dr John Reid who said: “I suggested we ask the advice of Dr Ian Macleod of the Edinburgh Dental Institute who helped reconstruct the face of Robert Bruce.”

A CT scan of the skull was carried out at the Borders General Hospital and from there the journey of reconstruction travelled to the University of Cardiff in Wales before ‘flesh was put on the bones’ by Dr Caroline Wilkinson at the University of Manchester.

Spare a thought, then, for the man who came to serve Rome’s cause in Scotland little knowing he would still be resident there 2,000 years later.

Rough justice for the reivers

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On a fine day it’s a pleasure to sit and watch the river Teviot and Slitrig Water come together at Hawick as they start the next stage of a journey seawards.

Having drawn a zest for life from the high hills of the Borders they join forces a few yards upstream from the town’s Millenium Bridge.

But this is a meeting place with a distinctly murky past.

Here, where nature has cut a little deeper into the natural landscape, you will find the town’s infamous drowning pool or murder pool, depending which side of the law you were on.

This part of the river was used to dispense a particularly rough kind of justice to the Border Reivers.

For over 300 years, from around 1300 to 1600, the Reivers’ bloody legacy held sway

in the badlands or debatable lands either side of the border between Scotland and England. To ‘reive’ means to rob or plunder but it wasn’t the only contribution these men gave to the English language.

They also bequeathed us blackmail and bereavement, which provides a fair indication of the type of pastimes they got up to.

Hawick’s history, criss-crossed by the nefarious activities of the Reivers, records one of the most savage cases of retribution. In July of 1562 some 22 Border Reivers met a watery end in the ‘pool.’

The Reivers were in the habit of bringing their ill-gotten gains to Hawick market but on this occasion Walter Kerr, warden of Scotland’s Middle March was one step ahead. Acting on the authority of the recently crowned Mary Queen of Scots he sealed off the town and captured dozens of Reivers.

Those on the lower rungs of the social pecking order had their hands bound and were executed at the pool, their bodies held underwater by lances. Their leaders were afforded the courtesy of a trip to Edinburgh and a ‘gentleman’s’ death by hanging.

We are pleased to report that times have moved on and every March Hawick now plays host to a colourful spring  that takes place from March 25 to 27 this year. More information at hawickreivers.com