Difference between revisions of "Hawick"
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== Famed Hawickers == | == Famed Hawickers == | ||
| − | Bill McLaren, the BBC rugby union commentator with a taste for exotic metaphor, was headmaster of Hawick Grammar School for many decades. | + | [[Bill McLaren]], the [[BBC]] [[rugby]] union commentator with a taste for exotic metaphor, was headmaster of Hawick Grammar School for many decades. |
[[Category:Scottish Towns and Cities]] | [[Category:Scottish Towns and Cities]] | ||
Revision as of 07:46, May 14, 2007
Teribus, ye Teriodin
is the motto of Hawick (pronounced Hoik), and is thought to mean 'Thor be with us, Thor and Odin', an invocation to the Norse Gods who are still venerated in the small Scottish border town each year with the bonfires that celebrate its Common Riding day, 14 June.
Hawick lies on the banks of the rivers Teviot and Slitrig, in the county of Roxburghshire, south-east Scotland, a remote area of hill, forest and narrow, steep-sided valleys. St Mary's church, established by 1183, is thought to stand on the site of a pagan temple (votary offerings with runic inscriptions to Odin have been excavated in the churchyard), and the town was an early settlement of the pagan Angles (the name means 'hedged enclosure' in Anglian). It was a minor administrative centre in medieval Scotland, frequently assaulted and burned during the endemic border warfare. Its later prominence was based on the development of the knitted woolen textile industry (drawing on the huge local resources of sheep, the Hawick Blueface being the largest native British variety of sheep). The town had a small specialist trade in knitted hose and stockings, but in 1771 the Bailie, John Hardie, introduced the first knitting frames to the town, revolutionising the industry. These were hand-operated, but once the fast-flowing waters of the Teviot and Slitrig were harnessed to power multitudes of frames in specially-built mills, the industry expanded rapidly. In 1824 the first steam-powered mills were introduced. One innovation of which Hawick is proud is the fishnet stocking, which emerged from the hand-farme knitters' dual activity of producing knitted hose and, having made a minor adhjustment to the frame settings, producing fishing net for the local salmon-fishing economy. Knitwear is still made in Hawick, and the famous Pringles company, a favourite of golfing folk, is based in the town.
Famed Hawickers
Bill McLaren, the BBC rugby union commentator with a taste for exotic metaphor, was headmaster of Hawick Grammar School for many decades.
