Hawick

📌 Town in Scottish Borders
★★

If you’re expecting Hawick (pronounced something like Hoick!) to be like most other main Borders settlements – quaint and rural with a small-town atmosphere – think again. Hawick is the largest town in the region, and this combined with its textile, livestock and engineering heritage results in a busy, urban-feeling place – surprising for somewhere in an otherwise remote location. If you’re having second thoughts about making the trip, don’t discount this bustling valley town just yet. The Borders Distillery is one of the new businesses reinventing Hawick’s industrial past, but the town’s “knitwear capital of Scotland” label also still stands, with several cashmere and merino wool firms still operating. There’s an imposing Town Hall to admire, and several grand statues – one commemorating the “Common Riding”. This major annual event celebrates the capture of the English flag in the 1514 Battle of Hornhole by local youngsters: many of the town’s older males had been killed at the Battle of Flodden a year before. Two council-run museums (Hawick Museum and the Borders Textile Towerhouse) are also both worth visiting; the former is inside the gates of a rather beautiful riverside park.