Galashiels is a town in the Scottish Borders and historic county of Selkirkshire, on the Gala Water river. The name is often shortened to “Gala”. The town, with a population of around 12,600, is a major commercial centre for the Borders region. The town is known for textile making, and is the location of Heriot-Watt University‘s School of Textiles and Design, Galashiels Academy and one campus of the Borders College, which as of 2009 has moved and now joins with the University. Galashiels’ population grew fast through the textile trade with several mills. A connection with the town’s mill history, the Mill Lade, still links the town from near the site of mills at Wheatlands Road, to Netherdale, via Wilderhaugh, Bank Street, the Fountain and next to the Tesco/retail development Street.
To the west of the town there is an ancient earthwork known as the Picts‘ Work Ditch or Catrail. It extends many miles south and its height and width varies. There is no agreement about the purpose of the earthwork. There is another ancient site on the north west edge of the town, at Torwoodlee, an Iron Age hill fort, with a later Broch known as Torwoodlee Broch built in the western quarter of the hill fort, and overlapping some of the defensive ditches of the original fort. The Romans destroyed the broch in AD 140, soon after it was completed. The town’s coat of arms shows two foxes reaching up to eat plums from a tree, and the motto is Sour Plums pronounced in Scots as soor plooms. It is a reference to an incident in 1337 when a raiding party of English soldiers were picking wild plums close to the town and were caught by Scots who came across them by chance and slaughtered them all.
On a hillside to the north of the town, Buckholm Tower is a prominent structure which dates back to 1582 and replaced another tower built on the same site but destroyed around 1570. In 1599 Galashiels received its burgh Charter, an event celebrated every summer since the 1930s by the “Braw Lads Gathering” with riders on horseback parading through the town. The Paton Street drill hall was completed in the late 19th century. In 2015, the Scottish Borders Council officially announced that Galashiels was the capital of the Scottish Borders.
There is some largely good-hearted rivalry between some of the Galashiels townsfolk and those of other border towns, particularly Hawick, the next largest town in the Scottish Borders. Galashiels’s citizens often refer to their rival as dirty Hawick while the ‘Teries’ retort that Galashiels’s residents are pail merks, supposedly because their town was the last to be plumbed into the mains water system and so residents had to rely on buckets as toilets.
Galashiels was also home to the author of the famous Scottish song, “Coulters Candy“. Robert Coltart was a weaver in the town, but also made confectionery in nearby Melrose. The song was created as an advertisement, and hence was renamed as “Sugar Candy” when played by the BBC. The song is possibly better known by the first line of its chorus – “Ally, bally, ally bally bee”. Coltart died in 1890. The 1985 Marillion hit single Kayleigh was partially inspired by events that took place in Galashiels as the band’s lead singer Fish spent some time in the town in his earlier years. In 2012 the Scottish Borders Council undertook work to revamp the Market Square with lyrics of the song inscribed into the paving slabs. Fish officially reopened the square on completion later that year.
