The Horncliffe Salmon Procession is an annual winter festival in the village of Horncliffe, Northumberland, celebrating the River Tweed’s historic salmon fishing heritage with a torchlit parade of handmade lanterns, traditional music (often featuring Border Morris dancers like Rag Bag Morris), food, and a bonfire, marking the end of winter darkness and the return of […]

Strawberry Hill rises quietly above Tweedsmuir, its 495-metre summit offering wide, rewarding views after a strenuous climb. From the top, the waters of Fruid Reservoir stretch out below, with nearby Garelet Dod standing watch across the valley. It is a place where landscape and history meet, and where the name of the hill carries a […]

Rising quietly to just 538 metres, the hill was hardly impressive at first glance. Sheep grazed its slopes, and mist often clung to its rounded summit, disguising it as little more than another fold in the Scottish Borders. Yet locals had always called it The Crown of Scotland, a name far grander than the hill […]

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 […]

Wandering through the scenic landscape of the Borderlands, you might stumble upon curious stones and markers that whisper tales of the past. One such haunting relic is the Meuchel Stone, near Horndean in Berwickshire. This weathered grave marker commemorates a packman—a term used to describe an itinerant trader in the 19th century who roamed rural […]

From the earliest Neolithic settlers to modern-day artisans, sheep farming has shaped the region’s economy, culture, and landscape. Powered by the river, and later wind and steam, early mills transformed local wool into high-quality textiles sold across the globe. The hardy Border Cheviot sheep, bred in the uplands of Ettrick, Yarrow, and the Cheviot Hills, […]