Fairy Glen

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I checked TripAdvisor for my options in Galashiels. The Number 1 rated attraction it seemed was the Waverley railway line to Edinburgh. The way out is not the most obvious choice to promote the town. It could be a long afternoon. The train to Tweedbank - the end of the line - left Edinburgh Waverley bang on time and headed out into the afternoon sunlight. I had been given 9 minutes in my schedule to change platforms from the incoming Virgin East Coast train and with the sheer size of Waverley, it is always a challenge. I comfortably made it, but you need to be nimble on your pins. There is no time for dawdling here. The Waverley Line was a victim of cost cutting in the 1960s, but re-opened to many plaudits in 2015. What is a few hundred million pounds between friends to recreate something that was already there? Hey presto - a new rail line to the Borders, which can only improve the fortunes of the Gala area. A train guard handed out small menus to tempt refreshment purchases. The ladies next to me - after a hard days shopping in Edinburgh - eyed up the House of Cocktails. Yours ... from £3.30. A bit early, I thought. The first few stations are very much commuter park & ride, before we give way to old mining towns. I noticed a complementary bus to Musselburgh Races from New Craighall and the National Mining Museum of Scotland amongst other things. The urban and industrial soon passes - the stations close together - and it is a good 20 minutes of green, rolling scenery before Stow and then Galashiels. Tweedbank is last on the line and possibly closer to my ultimate destination, but I needed to look around Gala first.



I alighted and walked across the road through the Galashiels Interchange. Borders Bus to everywhere. It was a smart building with a quirky design. I liked it. As ever in Bus Station land, the cafe was busy... Born in the Borders. Interchanges naturally draw folk - time to kill before your connection is due - but there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of people here, without a multitude of destination options. Each to their own, I guess. The bus operation had a banks man, which seemed a bit overkill and out of fashion. He was thoughtfully provided with a small personal bus shelter for those inclement days, of which there are no doubt many. Be prepared! I had already spied a McDonald's, a Sports Direct, a Matalan and other retailers from the train on the northern edge of town, so Gala looked more alive than TripAdvisor suggested already. I studied my Galashiels Town Trail walking route and headed out into the sunshine. It was a typical town in the Scottish Borders, but with more life than many. The buildings often look functional and plain drab. However, in Galashiels a splash of colour had been added at every turn with hanging flower baskets. The buildings too looked and smelled of money in their past. I checked out the Church of Our Lady & St Andrew next to the Interchange, before walking through Market Square up the Main Street. A quirky statue of a Man With A Sheep caught my eye. I studied it, before the title became obvious. It was sculpted by Ann Henderson in 1971 and originally stood in the centre, before a landscaping scheme in 1994. There were the now standard charity shop offerings, but also a healthy supply of thriving retail brands in operation. I noted a Costa Coffee and although I wasn't in the market, plenty of barbershop options. Turkish, Italian and Scottish! I would see even more in a while near Bank Street Gardens. Others had closed or relocated - unable to live with competition. The Victoria Buildings stood out - once apparently described as the finest retail building outside Edinburgh. An exaggeration I fear, but quite imposing. It naturally now contained a barber shop in part of the ground floor. The 1894 Old Port Office stood opposite. A kilt shop proudly advised that all kilts were hand stitched. I thought of all the overseas visitors parting with twice the money in Edinburgh and I bet not one even asked ... are your kilts hand stitched? The moral of the story is to shop wisely.



The town contained a Spoons, which meant a cheap feed was available if nothing else took my fancy. The locals were overindulging in the Bridge Inn just along the way, so it was either seriously cheap or the characters I could see were all barred from the usual cheap ale venue. Bridge Inn was a historic coaching inn from the days before the railway and it had now found a new market. I turned on to Bank Street. A review on Trip Advisor described them as an "oasis" in a sea of depression or words to that effect. They were very nice. A Council maintenance man was manicuring the lawns with an ancient Hayter. I congratulated myself that I had recently chosen to have mine repaired, as opposed to investing in a new, more modern piece of machinery. The cut was good. The flowers bright and well tended. A number of the benches were populated, as the good folk of Gala enjoyed the afternoon sun. The opposite side of the road was bustling - various businesses and not one empty unit, that I could see. You won’t be surprised, but one was a barbers. The good folk of Galashiels clearly appreciate a regular trim. I would later note an exception at Gala Fairydean Rovers, where the bad tempered centre forward favoured the ponytail. There was a bust of Sir Walter Scott at one end and the Round Tree Bridge at the other. It had the same emblem as Gala Fairydean Rovers FC etched into the red stone. I made a mental note to research it later. Scott's home is outside Gala in Abbotsford and his literary quotes are inscribed everywhere here. A summer bus links the Borders towns to such tourist venues. A few sat outside the Auld Inn and enjoyed a drink in the sun. There would be unlikely to be any better days ahead, as autumn arrives. A Market Cross stood nearby in Cornmill Square and the Gala Water rushed in a stone culvert beneath. A small dam was in place to allow the flow of water to be controlled. I presume that the water power was diverted and harnessed to power the wollen mills in the valley, from which prosperity followed. The Free Library stood to one side and a statue of Burns watched over proceedings. He was watching Scott on the far side, but was a bit part compared to the bronze statue of a Border Reiver by Thomas Clapperton from 1925. A Border Reiver was basically an outlaw, who terrorised the hinterland between England and Scotland stealing livestock and causing general mayhem in between the 13th and 17th centuries. The said Reivers name derives from the old word to rob and contrary to myth were both English and Scottish. The Reiver stands in front of the War Memorial - a heralded design by Thomas Clapperton. The sheer numbers of names on the Memorial was a shock in a town this size. The Memorial was opened by none other than General Haig, which shows the power of forgiveness and loyalty without question, given that it was his Senior Officer class that led many onto the plaques in the first place. The Memorial looked across towards the old Volunteer Hall.



I walked up to the entrance to Scott Park, passing the Masonic Hall. All was quiet at the Gala Bowls Club. The Old Gala House was similarly shut for the day. The old home of the local Laird, it is now a small museum. A line of cottages on the edge of the Park was Tea Street, the oldest part of town. The buildings I had seen to date with the exception of the Interchange were all part of old Galashiels. My next target was an unassuming modern block of flats called Church Square. Church Square to many would be another block of low rise Council flats. Indeed they are..... but they are a Peter Wormsley design. A local architect, inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright - who specialized in 1960s brutalist, modernist concrete structures. The flats became Church Square incidentally, as they are in a space created by the demolition of the old Parish Church. It was winner of the best Local Authority housing scheme of 1963 in Scotland, at a time when tenament flats were being torn down ten a penny and replaced. Wormsley gave Gala two designs - these flats and the celebrated Main Stand at Gala Fairydean Rovers FC. We'll return to "The Stand " - as Gala's website refers to it - later. The San Siro of the Borders was just a few minutes walk away. In the meantime, I feasted my eyes on the grand Victoria villas nearby. The proceeds of the wollen trade built big houses, but only the fortunate ones got to live in them.

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Comments

[Rainyb]

Love it!

[Rainyb]

Good shot!

[Rainyb]

Well done! Interesting ;o)