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Selkirk

The twin valleys of Ettrick and Yarrow present some of the most glorious scenery in the Borders. High on the hillside, the Ancient and Royal Burgh of Selkirk enjoys superb views across Ettrick Water. Sir Walter Scott had close connections with the town, serving as Sheriff of Selkirkshire from 1799 until 1832. There’s a striking statue of him in front of the Courthouse where he presided so often and where visitors can see a video detailing Scott’s associations with the area and its people.

Another statue in the High Street commemorates Mungo Park, the explorer and anti-slavery activist who was born in Yarrow, 7 miles to the east, in 1771. He was educated at Selkirk Grammar School and then trained as a doctor. After serving as a surgeon’s mate on a ship sailing to the East Indies, he set off to map the River Niger, a project that occupied more than two and a half years. His account of that expedition, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa became a best-seller. In 1806, he launched a second expedition but disappeared without trace. That tragedy was mirrored 20 years later when his son followed him to Africa and also vanished.

The oldest building in Selkirk is Halliwell’s House and Robson Gallery, just off the market square, where there is a small museum on the ground floor and an art gallery on the upper floor. The museum’s most prized possession is the “Flodden Flag”. Eighty men of Selkirk marched off to fight in the calamitous Battle of Flodden; only one of them returned. He stumbled into the Market Square bearing a captured English flag. Unable to express his grief, the soldier simply waved the flag towards the ground. His gesture is symbolically re-enacted each year in June during the Common Riding, one of the oldest of the Border festivals, dating back to the year of Flodden Field, 1513. As many as 500 riders take part in the ceremony.

Robert D. Clapperton Photographic in Scotts Place is a working museum and photographic archive. It traded for three generations under the family name of the founder Robert Clapperton, all using the original daylight Studio. They left a unique archive of photographic images of the life and times in which they worked and the Studio where they worked. The present proprietors, the fourth generation, demonstrate features of the studio which has been set up as a working museum and photographic archive,

At the Selkirk Glass Visitor Centre at Dunsdalehaugh you can see glass paperweights being made.

The Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Centre is within St Mary’s Mill, and offers research facilities on local history, geography  and genealogy, including the records of the old counties of Berwickshire, Selkirkshire, Roxburghshire and Peeblesshire.