We crossed the pass in looping bends and followed the road as it twisted down through broad-shouldered, sheep-grazed hills into Tweeddale. Tweed’s Well, the source of the Tweed, was simply marked by a road sign pointing seemingly nowhere but honouring a drip-fed spring pushing its pile of coins to the surface, and not much more […]

When I booked into Robert Smail’s Printing Press in Innerleithen for a letterpress workshop, I needed some words to practise with. My friend, Lindsay Macgregor, is a gifted poet and she’d been commissioned to write a poem about Peeblesshire as part of an anthology of poems from across the UK. I think her riddle sums […]

Such a familiar journey but always special. Childhood fun and a good pun with history and mystery. Read the poem, Royal Border Bridge, here. The Royal Border Bridge is one of Berwick-upon-Tweed’s most iconic landmarks, carrying the East Coast Main Line high above the River Tweed. Designed by the renowned Victorian engineer Robert Stephenson and opened […]

An extract from the Edinburgh Evening Post, Wednesday 07 November 1832. Mr. WALTER THORNBURN was angling in the Tweed last week, and hooked a salmon at a place called the New Water, below Innerleithen. The fish proved remarkably camstairy from the beginning, refusing and despising all in manner of control. In short, he would neither […]

Here is a concrete representation of pool names on the Lower Teviot Pools between Roxburgh and Kelso. It was published in a pocketbook by Polygon in 2001 called ‘The Order of Things’. The River Teviot is the largest tributary of the River Tweed by catchment area. The Teviot is an important river for wildlife, especially the Atlantic salmon.

We decided to spend the first night of our honeymoon (heading for Orkney) at the historic Crook Inn. It turned out hilarious. The place was locked up for the night and a very disgruntled gentleman eventually opened the door. He then proceeded to treat us as if we were on a dirty night away! Which […]