Peebles Area

Traquair House

Melrose Abbey

Peebles High Street

Area Main Page

The attractive town of Peebles lies on the north bank of the Tweed. Its broad main street leads to Peebles Old Parish Church, built in 1887 and incorporating parts of an earlier church. Peebles is also home to the Tweedale Museum.

After leaving Peebles the Tweed passes Innerleithen, which grew in the 1700s around its mills. It later attracted Victorian visitors to sample its spa waters. You can still visit St Ronan's Wells during the Summer to sample the waters: though these are very much an acquired taste.

A short distance south of Innerleithen is Traquair House. This started life as the Palace of Traquair, a favourite retreat of Scottish Kings as far back as the 1107, and a building that has been periodically extended and revised since. It is said to be the oldest continuously inhabited house in Scotland, and if that were not enough of an attraction, it also has a brewery.

Galashiels lies not on the River Tweed, but on the Gala Water. It grew as a mill town and remains an important centre of the wool and cashmere industry. Lochcarron of Scotland offer mill tours and have an excellent shop. Further up the Gala Water is the ancient Stow. If you travel east through Galashiels and past the confluence of the Gala Water with the Tweed you come to the very attractive town of Melrose: en route passing the home of Sir Walter Scott, Abbotsford.

Melrose is perhaps best known for being the home since 1883 of a rugby tournament, the Melrose Sevens, held in April each year. In the heart of the town lie the remains of Melrose Abbey, originally founded here by the Cistercians in the 1100s. Melrose was on the route of more than one marauding army from the south, and much of what remains dates back only to the 1400s. And quite a lot does remain, including a fair part of the Abbey Church, said to be the final resting place of Robert the Bruce's heart.

North along the A68 from Melrose is Earlston, with beyond it Lauder. Lauder is a traditional market town which lies on the western side of the Lammermuir Hills, and is the departure point for the Southern Upland Way as it heads north east to traverse them. On the edge of Lauder is Thirlestane Castle, built to an unusual design in about 1590 and converted into a palace in the 1670s an a grand country house in the 1840s. Also in Lauder is its fascinating Old Church.

Further north along the A68 lies Pathhead, with nearby Soutra Aisle, Crichton Castle and Crichton Collegiate Church, while to the west is the tiny village of Temple, named after its links with the Knights Templar.