Hawick

The first thing anyone not familiar with Hawick needs to know is that the name is pronounced ‘Hoyk’. It is situated on the Teviot where the river is joined on its south bank by the Slitrig Water. The name Hawick is Anglo-Saxon and derives from ‘Haga-Wic’ meaning ‘hedge farm or settlement’ – a place enclosed by a hedge.

Hawick has its own distinct local dialect ‘Teri-Talk’ and a culture almost all of its own. People from Hawick are know as ‘Teries’, apparently from the old traditional town song which includes the line ‘Teribus, ye Teri Odin’, curiously a call for the support of the Norse gods Thor and Odin. Like Jedburgh, Hawick even has its own confectionery, the Hawick Balls, which are old-fashioned, crunchy peppermint-flavoured sweets with a chewy centre that were developed in the 1850s.

Hawick High Street and The Horse statue © David Simpson

Recorded as ‘Hawic’ in the twelfth century, Hawick was given by King David I to a Norman family called the Lovels, who built a motte and bailey castle here. The mound of the motte can still be seen in a park called Moat Park in the southern outskirts of the town, just off a steeply ascending street called ‘Loan’.

Like all Border towns, Hawick often fell victim to border warfare and reiving. In 1514, an English raiding party was famously routed by the young men (the ‘callants’) of Hawick who rode out north east to a spot called Hornshole and seized the English standard.

This event is celebrated in the annual Hawick Common Riding each June and is also recalled by the Hawick Horse equestrian statue that is known locally as ‘The Horse’.

'The Horse', Hawick — ‘The Horse’, Hawick © David Simpson

The statue, created by a local sculptor called William Beattie is situated near the northern end of Hawick’s High Street and depicts a man on a horse – one of the Hawick heroes – wielding a flag. It was erected in 1914 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the 1514 event.

Hawick’s growth largely came from its textile mills, it being an important centre for knitting and weaving, particularly from the seventeenth century. It is still especially famous for its cashmere and tweed. In 1771 Bailie John Hardie introduced stocking frames, a machinery that he had seen at mills in the west of Scotland. Machine manufactured knitwear soon eclipsed the old hand-knitting industry in Hawick.

River Teviot at Hawick. On the right is Duke Street © David Simpson

Around 3,000 people were employed in textiles in Hawick as the nineteenth century commenced. Manufacturers such as the Scottish Borders Pringle family – still a name internationally associated with knitwear – were amongst those with a base in Hawick.

In fact the town of Hawick was the birthplace of tweed, a name that first seems to have been used in 1826 from a misreading of the Scottish word ‘tweel’ – a twill.

Old Public Library, Hawick © David Simpson

Hawick has an air of prosperity and almost an Edinburgh-esque quality to it. The focal point of the town is the High Street which is dominated by the grand Scottish baronial style clock tower of Hawick Town Hall. Built in 1886 by James Campbell Walker, the town hall stands on the site of an earlier toll booth at the junction of High Street and Cross Wynd.

Hawick Town Hall and High Street © David Simpson

Other significant streets in Hawick include Bourtree Place; North Bridge Street and O’Connell Street. Facing each other across the Teviot in the northern end of the town centre are Duke Street and Mansfield Road. At the south end of the High Street near the junction of the Teviot and Slitrig Water is the older centre of Hawick.

Hawick 'The Return' — Hawick ‘The Return’ © David Simpson

Close to the High Street’s east end is ‘The Return’ a statue created in 2014 to commemorate the return of the callants of 1514, this time celebrating the 500th anniversary of the event. It complements ‘The Horse’ statue that celebrated the 400th anniversary, up at the northern end of the High Street.

Neighbouring streets in this older core of the town at the heart of Hawick include Silver Street; Howegate; Kirk Wynd; Kirk Stile; Tower Knowe, Tower Dykeside, Sandbed and ‘The Village’. Close to ‘The Return’ sculpture is the Border Textiles Tower House, a museum featuring the industry for which Hawick is famed.

The building incorporates, to its rear, Hawick’s oldest building, an old tower house called Drumlanrig’s Tower. Once the ‘Tower of Hawick’ it dates from the sixteenth century on the site of an earlier tower. It had been a home to the Douglasses and then to the Scotts of Buccleuch (of Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire) and became a coaching inn from the 1770s. A plaque recalls that it was visited by Sir Walter Scott along with his guests, the poet, William Wordsworth and Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy.

Close by is the Heritage Hub visitor centre and Kirk Stile with the church of St Mary and ‘Turning of the Bull’ monument nearby. The old parish church of St Mary dates from 1764 and is on the site of an earlier church of medieval times.

Hawick visitor centre with the church of St Mary in Kirk Stile to the left © David Simpson

In 1342, the old church was the site of an ambush in which Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, the Sheriff of Teviotdale was seized while he was holding court in the church. He was captured by a rival, William Douglas, the Lord of Liddesdale who dragged him off to Hermitage Castle where he was imprisoned and left to starve to death.

Close by is a sculpture by the Innerleithen artist, Angela Hunter entitled ‘Turning of the Bull’. This recalls a story related by a Scottish historian Hector Boece in 1536. It concerns a Scottish Borders man called William Rule who leapt in front of a wild white bull that charged King Robert the Bruce (1306-1328) while he was out hunting near Stirling.

Rule was able to hold and turn the bull, enabling the other hunters to slay it. From that day on Rule came to be known as Turn-e-Bull (Turnbull) – a possible origin of the surname so closely associated with both the Borders and North East England. William’s original name ‘Rule’ derived from the valley of the Rule Water to the east of Hawick.

Minto, Fatlips Castle and Denholm

About four miles downstream to the north east of Hawick on the south bank of the River Teviot is the village of Denholm with its extensive village green at a point half way between Jedburgh and Hawick.

Denholm’s name is slightly misleading as it is not a ‘holm’ as in old times it was ‘Denum’ which means ‘at the denes’ – at the valleys – the ‘um’ of the name being an Anglo-Saxon plural. The present village was laid out around the green in the seventeenth century. At the centre of the green is the Leyden Monument which commemorates the Denholm-born poet and linguist, Dr John Leyden (1775-1811) who was a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

To the north of Denholm, across the River Teviot is the village of Minto with Fatlips Castle on the Minto Crags to its east and the Minto Hills a little further to the north. The place-name Minto comes from a combination of the Brythonic ‘Mynydd’ meaning mountain and the Old English ‘hoe’ meaning hill. It means something like ‘promontory hill’ and likely refers to the crag on which the nearby Fatlips Castle stands.

Minto village was raided by the English in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century but the present village is not the original one because the Earl of Minto had the original village removed and relocated in the 1820s because it spoiled the view from his home, Minto House, which once stood just to the east.

Ironically, Minto House – a grand home whose architects included William Adam and William Playfair was demolished after it was condemned by a later Earl of Minto. Playfair was the architect who built the new village of Minto in the 1820s. The village church, at the heart of Minto dates from 1831 and is part of Ruberslaw parish. Ruberslaw is a hill to the south.

Fatrlips Castle on the top of Minto Crags, sometimes known as Minto Castle has also been known in times past as Mantoncrake Castle and Catslick Castle. It is in fact a typical Scottish Borders peel tower, similar to that at Smailholm, further to the north. The tower was built for the Turnbull reiving family (of Barnhills) in the sixteenth century, although the Turnbulls had been associated with Minto since at least the 1300s. A charter for Minto concerning a Walter Turnbull dates from 1375.

Fatlips Castle was owned by the Turnbulls into the 1600s but in 1705 it was acquired by Sir Gilbert Elliot, the first baronet of Minto. Later the family came to be titled Earls of Minto with later earls of Minto having the surname Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound. Minto is also a Scottish surname that derives from Minto the place.

Looking towards Fatlips Castle, Minto from the Bedrule to Denholm Road © David Simpson

The origin of the peculiar name Fatlips Castle has produced a number of different theories and traditions. One story is that the gentleman of the castle were a little too prone to welcoming female guests to the house with unwelcoming kisses. Another theory is that Fatlips was the name of a sprite who haunted the tower.

A spirit or sprite called Fatlips is also associated with Dryburgh Abbey where there is a legend that a woman whose lover died in the 1745 rebellion took refuge as a hermit in the cells of the abbey. Vowing to never see daylight again, she only emerged at night to allow the Fatlips sprite to tidy her cell, stamping out the moisture with his heavy iron boots.

From its high vantage point on the crags, Fatlips Castle could look south across the Rule Water valley towards the English border and communicate with signalling beacons to the neighbouring castle of Bedrule.

Rule Water and Bonchester Bridge

About a mile and a half north east of Denholm the River Teviot is joined on its south bank opposite Fatlips Castle and Minto by the Rule Water. Several hamlets along the course of this little river take their name from the Rule starting with Spittal-on-Rule in a spit of land between the Rule and the Teviot.

Teviot valley scenery between Bedrule and Denholm © David Simpson

Further upstream, we have Bedrule, the ‘bed’ part being from the Brythonic ‘Bod’ meaning ‘dwelling’. There is a mound of a castle dating back to the thirteenth century. It was once the seat of the Turnbull Border Reiver clan. A William Turnbull of Bedrule was Bishop of Glasgow 1447-1554 and the founder of Glasgow University and Jedburgh Grammar School.

There is a pleasant church at Bedrule where two sculptured Viking ‘hogback’ stones have been found. Such sculptures occur throughout the Scottish Borders region but are virtually absent from Northumberland and Durham (except in the valley of the Tees) but are also numerous in parts of northern Yorkshire.

Sign to Town O' Rule — Sign to Town O’ Rule © David Simpson

A little further upstream south of Bedrule, the valley is flanked on the west by Rubers Law hill which has a small ancient hill fort at the top. Continuing south upstream are more ‘Rule’ names – Hallrule and Town o’ rule on the western bank and in a side valley to the east are Abbotrule and Ruletownhead. At Abbotrule, a now ruined church was once the property of Jedburgh Abbey.

The Rule Water at Bonchester Bridge © David Simpson

Half a mile south of Hallrule is Bonchester Bridge, the main settlement of the Rule Water valley. The neighbouring Bonchester Hill is topped by an ancient fort and settlement and other earthworks, more substantial than those of Rubers Law to the north. ‘Bonchester’ is from ‘Boncastra’ meaning ‘good fort’ and may refer to the fortified site.

From Bonchester Bridge the A6088 heads south east to Carter Bar on Scotland’s Cheviot border or north to Hawick in the other direction. Other roads from Bonchester Bridge head south to Wauchope Forest and Liddesdale; north along the Rule Water to Bedrule or north east to Jedburgh via Fodderlee and Swinnie.

Just south of Bonchester Bridge is a hamlet called Hopkirk with a nineteenth century church at the site of an earlier medieval one. A little further south still are places called Forkins, Wauchope Farm; Wolfelee; Wolfehopelee and to the east Wolfelee Hill.

Wolfelee was historically associated with the Elliott clan of Border Reivers, specifically those with the surname spelling of a double L and double T :

The double L and single T : descend from Minto and Wolfelee”.

About eight miles south of Wolfelee passing through the wilderness of Wauchope Forest we reach Saughtree on the course of the Liddel Water in Liddesdale. The border with Northumberland and England in the upper reaches of the North Tyne above Kielder lies across the Cheviot wilderness about three miles to the west of here.

Teviotdale and Borthwick Water

Two extensive valleys head upstream west and south west of Hawick, both reached via the A7. One is the Teviot, forming Teviotdale to the south west; the other, to the west, is Borthwick Water. To follow Borthwick Water upstream leave the A7 at Martinshouse and head west. This river stretches ten miles rising near Craik in Craik Forest.

The main settlement of this Borthwick Water is Roberton village, on the north bank half way between Craik and Hawick. Alemoor Loch, in the neighbouring Ale Water valley is a mile and a half north west of Roberton. Another tiny place, in a side valley, just east of Roberton, is Harden on the Harden Burn. It was home to a notorious reiver, Walter Scott (1560-1629) – ‘Auld Wat of Harden’, one of the men who rescued Kinmont Willie from Carlisle Castle in 1596.

Borthwick Water joins the Teviot near Martinshouse. You can head into Teviotdale by following the A7 south westward. Passing close to Branxholm Bridgend and Goldielands (the site of a pele tower), the Teviot is joined from the west by the Borthwick Water river, a mile west of Hawick. Here the Teviot is bordered on its north bank by Borthaugh Hill close to the confluence.

Further upstream along the Teviot is Branxholm, home to Branxolme Castle, a tower house of 1571 on the site of an earlier one. It was a stronghold of the reiver clan called the Scotts of Buccleuch and features in The Lay of the Minstrel poem by Sir Walter Scott.

Further upstream along the A7 we pass farms hamlets such as Newmill and Broadhaugh. Beyond Broadhaugh we catch a glimpse of a 50 ft cairn in the distance to the west, erected in 1874 to commemorate local poet and songwriter, Henry Scott Riddell. Further on we may visit the Johnnie Armstrong Gallery and Borderland Museum before reaching Teviothead.

Strangely, the hamlet of Teviothead isn’t at the head of the Teviot at all. It’s three or four miles south west of here that the Teviot begins, in remote forested upland west of Comb Hill. However, the A7 enters Teviotdale from the south at Teviothead, so for motorists, it is the beginning of the dale.

Heading south along the A7 takes us to Langholm in Eskdale along the valley of a tributary of the Esk called Ewes Water, passing a tiny village called Arkleton. Continuing south along the Esk valley from Langholm we reach Canonbie near which the Esk is joined by the Liddle Water that forms the valley of Liddesdale to the east.