Town in Scottish Borders, Scotland
Peebles
A Borders town whose motto means 'swimming against the stream brings increase', and whose festivities feature in the medieval Scots poem Peblis to the Play.
Key information
- County
- Scottish Borders
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 8,400 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Beltane Festival, Neidpath Castle, the Chambers brothers, Glentress mountain biking
- What locals are called
- Peebleans
- Famous people
- William Chambers, Robert Chambers, Mungo Park
- Football clubs
- Peebles Rovers
About Peebles
The town that swims against the stream
Peebles has three salmon on its coat of arms, and the motto beneath them is Contra nando incrementum: 'by swimming against the stream there is increase'. It suits a place on the River Tweed, where salmon have been part of local life for centuries. The town sits where the Eddleston Water meets the Tweed, in rolling hill country about 23 miles south of Edinburgh. It was a royal burgh and the county town of Peeblesshire, which is why a place of its modest size has such a grand old kirk, a castle and a very proper High Street. The salmon motto also fits the town's character: a small place that keeps doing its own thing.
Peebles to the Play
One of the oldest comic poems in Scots is called Peblis to the Play, a rollicking 15th-century account of a country crowd heading to a festival in the town. It is the earliest literary hint that Peebles knew how to throw a party. The tradition continues every June with the Beltane Festival, revived in 1897. A Beltane Queen is chosen and crowned, and the town turns out for processions, a ride-out of horses and riders, and a week of events. Locals, the Peebleans, take it seriously, and being picked as Queen is a big moment in a young woman's life. The Cross Kirk, ruined today, dates from the 13th century. It was once part of a friary, and its stones are among the oldest in town.
The castle that lost its trees
Neidpath Castle stands on a rock above the Tweed just west of Peebles. It is a tall 14th-century tower house, and its walls are famously thick. It passed from the Hay family to the Douglases, Dukes of Queensberry. The fourth Duke, known as 'Old Q', cut down the woods around the castle. William Wordsworth was so irritated that he wrote a sonnet about it in 1803, scolding the Duke for stripping the landscape. Today the castle can be seen from the riverside path that follows the Tweed out of town.
Two brothers and a dictionary
Peebles produced two of Scotland's great publishers. William Chambers was born here in 1800 and his brother Robert in 1802. Together they founded Chambers's Edinburgh Journal and built the firm behind Chambers Encyclopaedia and the Chambers Dictionary, still a favourite of crossword fans. William never forgot his home town. In 1859 he gave Peebles the Chambers Institution on the High Street, which housed a library, museum and art gallery and is still the heart of the town's cultural life. The explorer Mungo Park also lived here for a time. After his first African expedition, he set up as a surgeon in Peebles in the early 1800s, before heading back to Africa.
Hydros, hills and bikes
In 1878 the Peebles Hydropathic Hotel opened on the hill above town, aiming to cure the Victorian public with water treatments and fresh air. The original was damaged by fire in 1905 and rebuilt. Still known locally as the Hydro, it remains one of the town's best-known buildings. Peebles became a holiday resort, and the slogan 'Peebles for Pleasure' stuck. The railway to Edinburgh closed to passengers in 1962, but the town kept its visitors. Now they come for the outdoors. Glentress Forest, just east of town, is one of Scotland's best-known mountain biking centres and part of the 7stanes trail network. Kailzie Gardens, with its walled garden and ponds, is a gentler option. Rugby is the town's main sporting passion, as in much of the Borders, while Peebles Rovers carry the football flag. The Tontine Hotel on the High Street dates from 1808 and gives the main street an air of coaching-era confidence.