A little past the Beef Tub, near the head of the Cross Burn, on the A701 heading towards Tweedsmuir, is the Postie Stone. It commemorates the lives of John Goodfellow, a coach driver, and James McGeorge, a coach guard. These two good friends were taking the mail coach from Dumfries to Edinburgh in February 1831. […]

Lord Dowding is probably Moffat’s most famous son as, during the Second World War, he led RAF Fighter Command in its defeat of the Luftwaffe, saving the UK from a Nazi invasion. Wartime prime minister Winston Churchill dubbed him the ‘architect of deliverance’. Dowding was born in Moffat at St Ninian’s Preparatory School. He was […]

When you’re in Well Street, in Moffat, don’t forget to pay your respects to King Robert the Bruce. Robert I, born in 1274, was King of Scots from 1306. He led Scotland against England during the First War of Scottish Independence and successfully fought for Scotland to be an independent kingdom. The statue above Well […]

Corehead is about four and a half miles north of Moffat town centre, at the ground level entrance to the Devil’s Beef Tub. Here lived William Wallace’s sister, who was married to Thom Halliday, the Laird of Corehead. And here, in 1297, The Wallace reputedly gathered men from the Ettrick Forest and the Border Families, […]

We arrived in Berwickshire, in the wide valley of the River Tweed and its tributary the Whiteadder, for our stay in Allanton. All around were huge combines, tractors and trailers cutting, winnowing, baling and carrying off barley and specialist wheat. This is a land of big estates and large farms. The population is much sparser […]

My Great, Great grandfather John Brown, was the “Dominie” in Tweedsmuir for 41 years until 1895 when he died. His grave is in Tweedsmuir kirkyard. He was born in Peebles, in Kerfield in 1825, where his father was assistant gardener, the oldest of 10 children. He was possibly the teacher at Stobo before Tweedsmuir, but […]