In the 1950s an unusual and ambitious body was set up – the Tweed River Purification Board. This body viewed the Tweed as a whole, crossing local authority borders, and aimed to make the Tweed a clean and healthy river. The make-up of the Board in 1954 was a sign of the times – including […]

Do you know the difference between a gargoyle and a grotesque? While both can appear as fantastical creatures or monstrous figures, and often have a symbolic meaning, gargoyles are functional – they were designed to drain water away from the sides of buildings, whilst grotesques are purely decorative. So, while all gargoyles are grotesques, not […]

Books possess a remarkable power to whisk us away to different times and places. The Borders has long been a muse for writers, inspiring them to create enduring poetry, ballads, and literature that beautifully depict our landscape. Sir Walter Scott drew on Scottish history and landscapes to inspire his timeless classics including several books which […]

BURNFOOT, LOWER DRYBURGH, RIVER TWEED. It was a sad but glorious morning at Burnfoot on the Lower Dryburgh beat when we tipped his ashes from the urn into the river – the magnificent beech and oak trees were starting to colour with autumn hues and bowed gently with respect in the very slight breeze. It […]

Join Connecting Threads at the Cobby, Kelso for a session of poetry reading, riverside conversation and printmaking in celebration of Tweed, a new full-length poem in Scots by Borders-based poet Craig Aitchison. From the “steepin grund” and “moor gress” at the source of the Tweed near Tweedsmuir, through fickle rapids and history’s “constant rub”, the […]

Join Connecting Threads at Little Art Hub, Galashiels, for a session of poetry reading, riverside conversation and printmaking in celebration of Tweed, a new full-length poem in Scots by Borders-based poet Craig Aitchison. From the “steepin grund” and “moor gress” at the source of the Tweed near Tweedsmuir, through fickle rapids and history’s “constant rub”, […]