Today Tom and I went up to Hawick to walk the recently opened Hawick Flood Protection Scheme. This was an almost 4 mile walk and took us from Mansfield Park, the home of Hawick Rugby Club to where the river Slitrig joins the river Teviot. This is one of the remaining knitwear companies on the route Johnstones of Elgin and now probably the biggest remaining mill and the most successful one.
We also passed the Borders Distillery and I confess I have yet to taste its Whisky
The Slitrig joins the Teviot as I watch from a statue of James Thompson the Founder of Hawick Burns Club.
Tom examines the statue commemorating James Thompson.
The meeting of the two rivers
A key footbridge on the Protection Scheme
The Teviot with one of the many green bridges on the route
A closer look at one of the bridges
There are several of these strengthened glass panels in the barrier and if you look closely you can see a map of the Teviot and its tributaries etched on the glass. Unfortunately two of these glass barriers have already been vandalised.
A famous quote by Bill McLaren the BBC Rugby commentator who lived all his life in Hawick. "as slippery as a baggie in a border burn"
One of the main bridges over the Teviot for traffic.
One of the many mills I used to visit on my days in the Air Freight industry in the late 80s and early 90s. In the partnership of Atlasair with USA Company United parcel Service (UPS) we got huge business from Hawick's knitwear industry. We closed down our main competitor in Hawick who actually had an office in the town as we were providing next day delivery to New York and 2 days delivery to many other USA cities at a fraction of the price they charged. Some days we had several vans in Hawick collecting hundreds of export shipments.
Tom examining the bridge near Johnstones of Elgin
A section of the barrier with two strengthened glass panels in it
This is Glebe Mill which was occupied by Pringle of Scotland and is now derelict as is many of the mill buildings in Hawick. When I started visiting Hawick to sell our UPS Service in 1986 there was 35 working mills and there is now less than a third of them left.
The sad sight of Glebe Mills. Pringle had another mill called Victoria Mill at the other end of Hawick and it no longer exists.
This is where we started our walk and the bridge at Mansfield park the home of Hawick RFC
Mansfield Park which was flooded several times prior to the new Flood Protection Scheme
Mansfield Park Bridge
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