Posts

Showing posts from September, 2018

Kelso Abbey

Image
With the King and a huge chunk of Scotland’s aristocracy and clergy lying dead on the field at Flodden, the Kerrs took the opportunity to ride up to Kelso abbey the night after the disastrous battle and Dand Kerr of Ferniehirst had his younger brother Thomas, or Tam as he was known to his reiver friends, installed as Commendator, on the reckoning that they were protecting it from any English follow-up attack. Tam went on to become Abbot of the abbey in 1534, with the Cessford Kerrs eventually taking over after the murder of William Kerr in 1556 on the orders of the Regent Moray. The abbey is an impressive ruin near the centre of modern Kelso today and is well worth a visit. There are also partially ruined abbeys at nearby Jedburgh and Melrose, where the heart of Robert the Bruce is buried.

Hawick

Image
Hawick ( pronounced ‘Hoyk’ ) was a Scott stronghold and the town is a great base for getting around the area today. The Border textiles towerhouse is a hands-on exhibition exploring the town’s industrial past in knitwear and tweed, while hidden inside the building is a 16 th century pele and you can learn all about it in the ground floor tower room. The Registrar of Genealogy can also help with your family history research. The textiles towerhouse is at 1 Tower Knowe in the town, has free entry and is open all year around, Monday to Saturday 10-4.30 and Sunday 12-3 from April to October and Monday-Saturday 10-4, closed Tuesday and Sunday, from November to March. In 1593 two bands of English riders raided all the way up to Hawick, taking goods and cattle, and although the King sent Hamilton, Hume, Seton and Sir Robert Kerr to rescue the goods, it was felt by many to be a false alarm. Three years later Buccleuch gathered most of the Elliot clan to his house in Hawick as a

Resting in the Ground at St. John's

Image
The beautiful brunette made her way back from the glass and granite bar with a Pole Dancer cocktail in each of her hands and a twinkle in her big brown eyes. It was a quiet Tuesday night, and the piano music added to the ambiance as we worked our way through the leather-covered drinks menu. We knocked back a couple more fruit-filled iced glasses at last orders, and retired upstairs to a spacious suite complete with chandelier and sunken bath in the West Wing of the County Hotel in Newcastle, directly opposite the Central Station. I pulled the net curtains to one side and looked up the street illuminated by sodium lights, watching a few stragglers laughing, singing and wobbling up past the worn and weathered yellow sandstone of the church of St. John the Baptist rising in the dark sky opposite. We were celebrating the completion of my book ‘ Dick the Devil’s Bairns ’ with a rare night away to watch a Glaswegian comedian. Bairns didn’t have much humour in it, being a hefty hist