Galashiels

infobox UK place
country = Scotland
official_name= Galashiels
gaelic_name=An Geal Àth
scots_name= Gala, Galashiels
population = 12,367
os_grid_reference= NT495365
map_type=Scotland
latitude=55.61945
longitude=-2.80339
unitary_scotland= Scottish Borders
lieutenancy_scotland= Roxburgh, Ettrick and Lauderdale
constituency_westminster= Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
constituency_scottish_parliament= Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale
post_town= Galashiels
postcode_district = TD1
postcode_area= TD
dial_code= 01896

Galashiels is a burgh in the Scottish Borders, on the Gala Water river. The name is often abbreviated colloquially as "Gala".

Galashiels is a major commercial centre and central communication point for the Scottish Borders. The town is known for textile manufacturing, and is the location of Heriot-Watt University's School of Textiles and Design (previously known as the Scottish College of Textiles).

Locals are sometimes known as "Braw Lads or Lasses"

History

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, Torwoodlee, a fortification destroyed by the Romans in AD 140.

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. [cite book
title = The Works of John Ruskin
author = John Ruskin
publisher = Longmans, Green, and co.
year = 1907
pages = 613
accessdate = 2008-01-01] It is a reference to an incident in 1337 when a party of English soldiers were picking wild plums close to the town and were caught by Scots who 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 by the "Braw Lads Gathering" with riders on horseback parading through the town.

port

The following sports clubs are based in Galashiels:
* Gala Cricket Club
* Gala Fairydean F.C. (football)
* Gala Rugby Football Club
* [http://www.galashiels.bordernet.co.uk/lawntennis/ Galashiels Lawn Tennis Club]
* [http://www.GalaDean.co.uk Local Junior Football Club]

In culture

Robert Burns wrote two poems about Gala, as the town is locally abbreviated, "Sae Fair Her Hair" and "Braw Lads". The latter is sung by the populace each year at the Braw Lads Gathering. Sir Walter Scott built his home, Abbotsford, just across the River Tweed from Galashiels.

John Lochrie of Galashiels

John Lochrie was born in Galashiels, Scotland, March 18, 1861, the son of Neil Lochrie and Janet Provan. The father was a miner, employed in the mines of the Carron Iron Co.; and John, like other miners’ sons of the neighbourhood, went to work in the mines before he was quite ten years old. His first work was as "trapper boy." This work consists of opening and shutting one of the ventilating doors, that send the air-current back to the miners working in their places. The door that John attended was a very important one, and every day the mine-foreman would caution him to keep the door shut every minute possible, as all the miners’ lives beyond were in great danger from gas-explosions should the door be left open for any length of time. Think of a boy of such tender years, left alone from morning till evening in a dark chamber, opening and shutting a door as boys or ponies with mine-cars passed through, with the responsibility of scores of men’s lives that would be lost in consequence of his neglect of duty. Two years he spent at this work, the training of which to him has been of great importance in all his after life. At twelve he began pushing cars from the miners to the bottom of the shaft. This was hard work on the boys; the gangways were so low that the skin was always rubbed off their backs, and the skin would often be off their feet from the sulphur mine-water through which they had to travel.

John ‘s father and his two uncles, John and James Provan, his mother ‘s two brothers, went from Scotland to the United States in 1862. One of the uncles, John Provan, enlisted immediately in the Northern Army and saw severe service until the end of the war, attaining the rank of Captain. John ‘s father also enlisted in the Northern Army toward the end of the war. John’s father returned to Scotland in 1866, when John was five years old, but his uncle John did not go back to Scotland until 1876. He had gone west after the war and returned rich, having acquired wealth in the gold-mines of California. It was the wonderful stories told by his father and his uncle of their adventures in the United States that fired John’s ambition to seek his fortune in America, and he left Scotland as soon as he was allowed to leave home by his parents.

John arrived in New York when he was eighteen years old, with only one shilling and sixpence in his pocket. He made his way into the mining district of Houtzdale, Pennsylvania, where he found employment in the coal mines and worked for three years. In these years, by hard work and thrift, he was able to send for and bring over his father and mother and his nine brothers and sisters. During all the winters, from the time he was twelve years old, he had attended night schools, and by reading and study laid the basis of a good education.

In 1882, Mr. Lochrie returned to Scotland to marry the "bonnie Scotch lassie" he had left behind, and remained in Scotland six months. While there, though but twenty-one years old, he secured an important contract from the Carron Iron Co., for driving a tunnel through the old workings of the first pit, where he had worked as "trapper boy." His work was so satisfactory that the company offered him the position of mine-boss; but he declined, preferring to return with his bride to Pennsylvania, where he had located his family.

Before he was twenty-four he had charge, as mine-foreman, of three mines at Houtzdale, Clearfield Co., Pa., for the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., of New York City. But dissatisfied with his progress, when he was twenty-seven years old and the father of three children, he gave up his fine position in order to enter college and secure a technical education in mining. He moved to Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and children, and took the full mining engineering course in Ohio State University. He had only one thousand dollars saved to see him through, but by canvassing novelties, books and articles during his summer vacations, he was able to make sufficient money to keep his family and pay his way through college without having to ask assistance from anyone.

After completing his college course, he was sent to Colorado by his old company, to take charge of mines there for the Colorado Coal & Iron Co. (of which, at that time, E. J. Berwind was the principal stockholder). Mr. Lochrie’s practical knowledge and experience brought him very rapid advancement. After a few years in Colorado he returned to the East with the expectation of going into the mining business in West Virginia on his own account. However, he did not find conditions favourable, and for the next few years was employed chiefly as a mining expert to make examinations and reports on coal lands for several large concerns. This work took him into a large number of states and gave him a valuable knowledge of their mineral resources. He was a pioneer in building washeries for washing out the impurities of soft coal, for the purpose of making a higher grade of coke. He spent six years in experimenting and making high-grade coke out of what was considered a low-grade coal. His experiments and demonstrations in the utilization of inferior coal, at Graceton, Pa., almost twenty years ago, will be of great economic value to this country for centuries to come.

In 1898, the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. was about to open up a large coal field near Johnstown, Pa., and proposed to make these the most up-to-date and the largest coal operations in the United States. The coal was all to he mined and hauled by machinery—-everything was to be run by machinery that could be so run—a very radical departure from the system of mining of that time. Mr. Lochrie was intrusted by the General Manager of the Company, Mr. A. Crist, with the opening of the mines. He exerted all his energies in this work, and it can be truly said that he was one of the most important factors in making the Berwind-White mines, at Windber, Pa., the greatest coal-producing, low-vein coal mines that the world ever has known. In less than three years a new town was built up with a population of at least 7,000 people, and the mines in that same time were producing and sending to market 12,000 tons of coal per day. The mines have since run almost continuously, and their production for years has been from 16,000 to 18,000 tons per day. The town, with its surroundings, has a population of 15,000 people, and is the largest mining town in the United States. With its paved streets, its water, sewerage, electric lights and its public heating system, Windber can compare favourably with any city in the country.

In 1903, Mr. Lochrie left the employ of the Berwind Co. to go into business for himself, and has been remarkably successful. To-day he is an owner of mines, employing hundreds of men; of gas-wells, producing millions of feet of gas; of oil-wells in California; of thousands of acres of timber lands and farms, in the south and elsewhere. He is the President of the Scalp Level Coal Mining Co., President and Treasurer of the Lochrie Coal Co., Secretary and Treasurer of the Lake Trade Coal Mining Company, President of the Rummel Coal Co., President and Manager of the Salem Coal Co., and director and manager of other concerns.

But what he prizes far more than these material rewards of industry and business success, is his splendid family. He married, December, 1882, Matilda Wakely, who was also born in Bishopbriggs, Scotland. Their fathers had been "buddies" together in the mines, taking contracts together from the Carron Iron Co. to drive rock headings. When their children were very young, the two fathers agreed that when they were of age they would give them in marriage. When the young boy and girl grew up, they fell in with the plan of their parents; but John left his sweetheart to come to America, and as in Burns’ Highland Mary:

"Wi’ monie a vow and lock’d embrace,Our parting was fu’ tender,And, pledging aft to meet again,We tore oursels asunder."

But he was more fortunate than Burns, for he went back to Scotland shortly after he became of age and married his boyhood sweetheart and brought her back with him to this country. Nine children were the issue of this marriage:

Fannie M., April 5, 1884; Janet P., Feb. 27, 1886; Matilda, Dec. 26, 1887— all born in Houtzdale; Gilbert, born in Columbus. Ohio, while his father was in college there; Minnie, June 10, 1892; William Albert, April 11, 1894; Martha E., Sept. 20, 1895, John H., Aug. 27, 1897—born in Graceton, Pa.: and Rufus Hugh, born in Scalp Level, Pa., May 28, 1899. Mr. Lochrie ‘s first wife died April 23, 1900. He married Miss Kathleen MeNamara, of New York, June, 1903, and five children have been born to them; Kathleen, June 29, 1904; Thomas Clair, August 29, 1905; Agnes, April 12, 1908; Neil Malcolm, April 30, 1910; Robert Bruce, Oct. 24, 1912. There are eleven grandchildren.

Mr. Lochrie is a Presbyterian and a Republican. He became a Mason in Athole Lodge, Kirkintilloch, in 1883, and has been prominent in that society ever since. He has travelled considerable in nearly all the states of the United States and abroad. The most of his family know Scotland and Scottish life well and have visited with their father the land of his birth.

Areas

;BalmoralLocated in the south west of the town on Meigle Hill. Mainly ex-local authority houses and currently very popular in the housing market. Served by Balmoral Primary School.

;LangleeBuilt on both sides of Melrose Road to the east of the town and north of the Gala Water and River Tweed. The "bottom" half was built in the 1950s and '60s while the "top" half was built in the 1960s and '70s. Has a slightly notorious reputation.

;HalliburtonSits high up the hill as you leave Galashiels on the A7 towards Edinburgh at the north-west of the town. Comprises two large streets (Halliburton Place and Glendinning Terrace) that run parallel with Magdala Terrace and further on Bristol Terrace which make up the A7. Because of the location this area has spectacular views across Galashiels and onto Meigle Hill.

;Torwoodlee / KilnknoweOn the far west of Galashiels along the A72 (Wood Street) which runs to Peebles. Kilnknowe Road, Torwoodlee Road, Pringle Lane and Blynlee Lane, mainly ex-local authority houses, are currently very popular in the housing market and create a safe, family-friendly community with four play parks within a five minute walk. This area looks across the valley of the Gala Water and has spectacular views of Buckholm Tower. Woodlea provides recently built houses which are in great demand. Kilnknowe Caravan Park provides caravan accommodation for in-comers.

;NetherdaleIn the east of the town, Netherdale is home to Gala RFC and Gala Fairydean Football Club. Heriot-Watt University Borders Campus is located here also. Netherdale is a possible location for one of the two new primary schools needing built in Galashiels due to the town expanding.

;KingsknowesThe area most vehicles pass through, Kingsknowes is in the extreme east of Galashiels. The A7 from Selkirk enters from the south up to Kingsknowes Roundabout before heading west into Galashiels. The A6091 starts here and heads east past Tweedbank and Melrose to the A68. This is the preferred route from Carlisle to Edinburgh as the A7 loses its Trunk Road status here. This area is considered one of the most desirable areas to live in due to its modern construction and design.

;Town centreIt is quite hard to define what exactly is the town centre. As per the majority of towns in Britain Galashiels has a High Street which is used for commercial purposes but in Galashiels Channel Street is considered the main shopping street and has a pedestrian precinct and other traffic calming measures to ensure shopping in the town is a pleasurable experience.

A new road system is currently under construction through the town centre to ease congestion and to allow access to the two new huge supermarkets (ASDA on Currie Road which opened on the 20th of November 2006 and Tesco Extra on Paton Street which opened two weeks later on the site of their old supermarket. The two supermarkets are built within 200 m of each other on opposite sides of the Gala Water and are linked by a new road bridge which was completed in November 2006 as part of the aforementioned road system.

Galashiels also has a multi-screen cinema on Market Street and along with several restaurants and nightclubs gives Galashiels a very urban and city-like feel.

Rail transport

Galashiels is to be served by Galashiels railway station as part of the Waverley Line. The southern suburbs will also be served by Tweedbank.

chools

The following are listed by Scottish Borders Council as being in the Galashiels Area.

High schools
*Galashiels Academy

Primary schools
* Balmoral Primary
* Burgh Primary
* Caddonfoot Primary, Clovenfords
* Fountainhall Primary, Midlothian
* Glendinning Terrace Primary
* Heriot Primary, Midlothian
* Langlee Primary
* Stow Primary (Stow, Galashiels)
* St Margaret's RC Primary (Catholic School)
* St Peter's Primary
* Tweedbank Primary

References

*

External links

* [http://www.s1galashiels.com/ Galashiels community site]
* [http://www.galashiels.bordernet.co.uk/ Galashiels Town Website]
* [http://www.galashiels.com/ Website for Galashiels]
* [http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/galashiels/galashiels/index.html Undiscovered Scotland: Galashiels]
* [http://www.allinfoabouttouringuk.com/index.php?page=155 Galashiels]
* [http://www.torwoodlee.com/ Torwoodlee.com - The Website of James Pringle, the Laird of Torwoodlee, Galashiels]
* [http://www.clanpringle.org.uk/ ClanPringle.org.uk - The original Lairds of Gala]
* [http://www.clanscottsociety.org/ Clan Scott - current Lairds of Gala]