Kelso Abbey was founded in the 12th century by Tironensian monks during the reign of Alexander I, and once stood as one of Scotland’s most powerful monastic houses. Overlooking the meeting of the Tweed and Teviot rivers, it occupied a strategic site near Roxburgh, the intended southern stronghold of the emerging Scottish kingdom. This abbey […]

Founded in 1150 when Hugh de Morville invited Premonstratensian canons from Alnwick to settle here, their arrival marked the beginning of centuries of devotion and resilience. The abbey endured fire and destruction during the border wars, burned by English troops in 1322 and again by Richard II in 1385, yet it rose from the ashes […]

Melrose Abbey was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I, and became Scotland’s most important monastic house until the Reformation. The abbey’s east end was completed in 1146, and over the next fifty years its soaring Gothic architecture took shape in the form of a St John’s Cross. Though […]

FULLY BOOKED Join the Uncovering the Tweed geophysical survey team for an introduction to resistivity survey at the recently identified Fairnilee moated enclosure. Meet for an introduction to the survey technique, then take part in data collection from 10am to 1pm. Access: There is parking on site and participants should come prepared to walk over a […]

I recently read a book which talked of places that exist beyond any map, and it got me thinking. If you look at a map of the River Tweed, you’ll see how to travel from one point to the next, but it doesn’t tell you that up on the high street was a shop run […]

My first memory of the Scottish Borders was seeing a hedgehog in the garden of the house we first lived, near the Old Peel Hospital on the banks of the River Tweed. My mum woke me up to see it and we put out a dish of milk. I remember drinking elderflower cordial for the […]