Day 14. Tweed Valley/ Pebbles – Sep 22nd, 2013
The Germans went to the polls today. It would appear that Angela Merkle will have another four years as Chancellor.
This is the heart of the Scottish Borders Region. The Peebles Barony Castle Hotel, where we are staying, is located 17 miles south of Edinburgh, in the village of Eddleston, close to Peebles. Steeped in history, this 72 bedroom 16th century tower house offers facilities as a hotel, conference or wedding venue. It includes 25 acres of Peeblesshire countryside.
But the hotel has an interesting past. After the Fall of France in May 1940 the castle of Blackbarony, which had become a hotel in 1926, was requisitioned for the use of the Polish forces stationed in Scotland, in particular the 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade commanded by General Stanisław Maczek. The Polish forces in Scotland were entrusted by the War Office with the defence of the country’s east coast between Montrose, 61 km north of Dundee, and Burnt Island on the Firth of Forth against a possible invasion from German-occupied Norway. The Poles also assisted the defence of areas to the north and south, between Inverness and Berwick, by patrolling and guarding beaches, and installing tank obstacles.
We left the hotel at 08:30 with the aim of visiting several small towns in the Border Area. The list included Selkirk, Hawick, Jedburgh, Melrose and Pebbles.
The first history lesson was that Dr Beecham had rationalized the railway system in the 1960s by pulling up a lot of railway tracks north of the English border. In 2014 railway service will be restored from Edinburgh to Peebles to relieve pressure on tourism.
All day we played hide and seek with the clouds and the sun. For most of the day it was a very pleasant autumn day.
By 09:45 we came very close to Abbotsford as we wove a strange path through the countryside trying to work our way through a series of road closures for a bike race. Of course you will recall that Sir Walter Scott had a house in Abbotsford.
We visited Selkirk several times as every road we chose ended in a diversion sign and we had to try another route.
We got to Harwick, the home of Cashmere, by 10:30 only to find out it is pronounced Haik. Being Sunday morning, all was closed so we just went for a short walk.
A pattern was fairly obvious. In the Borders, wherever there was a small river powerful enough to turn a watermill, then a mill had been built and row housing constructed for the workers. Steam replaced water power but now most of the mills have shut down.
My travelling companion figured out that our Glaswegian driver pronounced the word Borders as if it had three “R”s in the middle and two at the end.
From 11:20 to 12:00 we visited the ruins of Jedburgh Abbey near the River Jed. By the way it is pronounced Jedboro. I was tempted by a stuffy animal toy in the inevitable Gift Shop called the “Hairy Haggis”. We moved to the opposite end of town for our lunch break, that just happened to include the Jedburgh Woollen Mill and an Edinburgh Woollen Mill. I wound up with two golf shirts at ten pounds each down from fifteen pounds.
The next stop was Melrose Abbey, where the heart of Robert the Bruce had been enclosed in the walls of the abbey. I liberated a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the Co-op store.
By now the temperature was up to short sleeve levels. We arrived at Traquair. House around 15:00 for a guided tour.
Dating back to 1107, Traquair was originally a hunting lodge for the kings and queens of Scotland. They hunted bears. Later a refuge for Catholic priests in times of terror the Stuarts of Traquair supported Mary Queen of Scots and the Jacobite cause without counting the cost
In the sixteenth century a significant extension was added onto the original lodge.
The house had a priest room on the highest floor, complete with an escape staircase hidden behind a false panel.
Mary Queen of Scots, who was six feet tall, visited in 1566, and noted that there was a brewery. After a couple of centuries lapse, the brewery is back in operation.
A copy of Mary’s execution warrant of 1587 was on display. In her bedroom there was a cradle in which she had rocked her son who became James VI of Scotland and James the First of England.
Twenty-seven kings have visited Traquair House.
In 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie left Traquair House never to return.
We were given the entire history of the family of which I only remember that one woman had 17 children and lived to quite a ripe age.
There was a harpsichord on display, one of only three of its type in the workd.
After the visit to the house I wandered around the grounds to admire the pigs.
At 16:00 we drove back to Peebles and spent 45 minutes trying to find something to do as all the shops had closed. We were saved by a plaque showing that John Buchan had visited Bank House. In this house Anna Buchan ( 1877 – 1948) and Walter Buchan ( 1882 – 1953) had lived and John Buchan had visited as a boy. John Buchan was the author of “Thiry-nine Steps” and as Lord Tweedsmuir was a Governor-General of Canada from 1935 to 1940, dying in office. Since Peebles lies on the banks of the Tweed River, the link to Tweedsmuir is intriguing.
By the way, there are Atlantic salmon in the River Tweed, which the locals pronounce as Tweet. Unlike their Pacific counterparts they can make more than one visit to their natal stream.
We got back to the hotel by 17:15 and prepared for a much-needed calorie infusion at the 19:00 dinner.
The Travels of David Ironsides 