County in Scotland
Scottish Borders
A Melrose butcher invented rugby sevens in 1883, and each summer Border towns still ride out on horseback to check their boundaries.
Key information
- County
- Scottish Borders
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- About 116,000 (2022 Census)
- Area
- About 4,700 square kilometres
- Known for
- Rugby sevens, Common Ridings, Abbotsford, the Border abbeys, tweed and knitwear
- What locals are called
- Borderers (Hawick folk are Teries, Selkirk folk Souters)
- Famous people
- Walter Scott, Mungo Park, Jim Clark, James Hogg
- Football clubs
- Gala Fairydean Rovers, Hawick Royal Albert, Peebles Rovers
About Scottish Borders
The butcher who invented sevens
In 1883 the rugby club at Melrose wanted to raise funds and had an idea: a tournament that could be finished in a single afternoon. Ned Haig, a local butcher, proposed teams of seven instead of fifteen. The Melrose Sevens was born, and the format went on to conquer the world, from Hong Kong to Olympic gold medals. The Melrose Sevens remains an annual event, traditionally held in April but moved to May in 2025. Rugby here is closer to a civic religion than a sport. Gala, Hawick, Melrose, Kelso and Jed-Forest are all small-town clubs with long traditions, and their rivalries shape the Borders' calendar. The football clubs, such as Gala Fairydean Rovers, Hawick Royal Albert and Peebles Rovers, play a distant second fiddle on most Saturdays.
Why whole towns saddle up each summer
From May to August, Border towns hold Common Ridings. Hundreds of riders follow a young man chosen as the Cornet, Callant or Standard Bearer, tracing the town's boundaries on horseback. The tradition goes back to the days when burghs had to guard their common land. Hawick's version is the most famous, and its anthem is the Teribus, a song its people sing with real feeling. In Selkirk, the Standard Bearer performs the Casting of the Colours, swirling the town flag in a ritual that recalls Flodden. After the disastrous battle of 1513, tradition says the only Selkirk man to come home brought back a captured English flag. Selkirk folk have been nicknamed Souters, after the shoemakers who once dominated the town. Galashiels has its Braw Lads Gathering. Jedburgh has its Callant's Festival, plus the Hand Ba' game at Candlemas, with the town's Uppies and Downies fighting over a ball. The Borders is also where "Jethart Justice" came from, supposedly hanging a man first and trying him afterwards.
Reivers, abbeys and a king's heart
For centuries this was the frontier between two hostile kingdoms, and life was rough. Border reiver families raided across the line, and the area filled with fortified towers and ballads of cattle-thieving and revenge. Hermitage Castle, in lonely Liddesdale, still looks like a place nobody would want to be a prisoner. In October 1566 Mary Queen of Scots rode to Hermitage and back in a day to see the wounded Earl of Bothwell, then fell gravely ill at Jedburgh. The great Border abbeys at Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso and Dryburgh were repeatedly burned by English armies, which is why they are now romantic ruins. Robert the Bruce's heart is buried at Melrose Abbey. It was discovered during excavations in 1921 and finally reburied there in 1998. Traquair House near Innerleithen claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited house in Scotland, and still brews its own ale.
Scott, Hogg and the writers' country
Few writers have shaped a landscape like Walter Scott. He built Abbotsford beside the Tweed, filled it with curiosities, and wrote the Waverley novels that helped to make Scotland's past fashionable. He is buried at Dryburgh Abbey, near the Eildon Hills where legend says Thomas the Rhymer met the Fairy Queen. His contemporary James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was a farmhand who became a poet and wrote the dark masterpiece The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Another Borderer took a very different road. Mungo Park, born near Selkirk, explored the Niger River in West Africa in the 1790s. Jim Clark, farmer and double Formula One world champion, grew up near Duns, where a museum honours him.
Wool, salmon and a famous misreading
The hills here are made for sheep, and the mill towns of Hawick, Galashiels and Selkirk turned that wool into fabric and knitwear. Hawick is still known for cashmere and knitwear, the home of names like Pringle and Lyle & Scott. Tweed cloth is said to owe its name to a misreading. A London merchant supposedly read the Scots word "tweel" as "tweed" in a letter, and the River Tweed lent its name to the cloth. The river itself is one of Europe's great salmon waters. Food here is plain and good. Selkirk Bannock is a rich fruit loaf, said to be a favourite of Queen Victoria. Hawick Balls are mint sweets, and Jethart Snails are peppermint-flavoured boiled sweets from Jedburgh.
The railway that came back
The Waverley Line from Edinburgh to Carlisle closed in 1969, leaving the Borders without passenger railway stations until the Borders Railway opened in 2015. It reopened part of the route as far as Tweedbank, near Melrose, 30 miles from Edinburgh. It was then the longest new domestic railway built in Britain in over a century. Hill-walkers have the Southern Upland Way and St Cuthbert's Way. Peebles, Kelso and Eyemouth are all small towns worth a stop. Eyemouth's harbour recalls the Black Friday disaster of 1881, when 189 fishermen died in a storm.