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Borders Textile Towerhouse, Hawick, Scottish Borders
Peter Lewis admires a vibrant museum that explores the history of textiles in the Scottish Borders
My guidebook to Scotland advises visitors to approach Hawick with low expectations. The region’s distant history chronicles centuries of bloodthirsty cross-border reivers (or raiders) warfare. These were once badlands. The guidebook considers them little improved.
Hawick, the largest town in the Borders and with a hacking cough of a name, is somewhat isolated. It has an urban feel, unlike the rural Waverley romanticism that drenches neighbouring communities.
In more recent centuries, the town was resolutely industrial, thrumming with looms. The harnessed power of the river Teviot and Slitrig Water sustained major textile industries with names such as Lyle & Scott and Pringle. Now shadows of their former selves, many mills remain as factory shops.
In the 1820s Hawick was described as a sort of Glasgow in miniature, a soubriquet much disliked then and now by both communities. But there is a link. Just as the Glasgow’s Miles Better campaign shrugged off the city’s industrial past by promoting culture, so the centre of Hawick has undergone a long overdue £10m makeover.
The Heart of Hawick project is, in grant-speak, a multi-agency arts and heritage initiative designed to contribute to social, cultural and economic generation. It has accomplished much.
A former weaving mill is now home to a theatre/cinema and visitor centre; the adjacent Heritage Hub is a base for the Borders Archive and Local History Centre. This is money well and wisely spent.
Almost unnoticed, picking up crumbs of grant falling from the tables of other projects, plus some small sponsorships and donations, the museum service has stripped out the previous underperforming static displays.
Realising that Hawick will never be a major tourist destination, curators and designers have created a homage to the textile industry, appealing to the repeat visits of local audiences. Their achievement has exceeded their ambition.
Teribus ye teri odin
Embedded in the museum building is an architectural secret. Drumlanrig’s Tower, built as a fortification in the 1550s, surviving fire, flood and dereliction, was later incorporated into a grand house and served for many years as a hotel, inn and visitor centre. Everybody I met in Hawick remembered with affection drinking in its vaulted bar.
That space now houses a nicely judged video introduction. For visitors a second secret is disclosed – that for all its dourness Hawick has always been at the centre of high fashion. Brands such as Chanel, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Paul Smith, Christopher Kane and Vivienne Westwood all employ the skills of workers in Hawick and nearby.
The words of textile designer Bernat Klein are emblazoned on one museum wall, “I dreamt of cloth vibrant with colour”, and this theme epitomises the building.
There is a tangible frisson to what might have been a boring exposition of industrial processes. The upper floors explain the processes of carding, dyeing, spinning, weaving and knitting through the faces, voices and experiences of local people.
The men and women of Hawick refer to themselves as teries, a reference to “Teribus ye teri odin”, the first line of the men’s battle cry at Flodden in 1513. This is sung every year at the Common Riding festival in June, an event the Rough Guide has described as one of the best parties in the world.
Especially endearing is that nobody knows what the words mean. They might be Scandinavian, Scottish Gaelic, or even Welsh. But they are chanted with gusto nevertheless.
Much of the exhibition technology was commissioned from local Media Studies High School pupils through a Warp, Weft and Edit project and is splendidly efficient. It’s good to hear the local burr rather than some homogenised infospeak.
Another surprising feature is a floor devoted to a catwalk of designs from elite couturiers, plus clothes created by students. It is emphasised that this place is as much about the future of textiles as the past.
There are some innovations that have united the community. Textile workers’ reunions brought in a team of volunteers. The most dedicated of them made up the collection management/documentation team, liaised with schools and researchers and found artefacts. This is clearly a passionate community project that grew from within rather than being imposed by outside consultants.
Uncertain future?
One initiative is particularly impressive. For six months more than 100 children from schools in Hawick, Duns, Earlston, Eyemouth, Galashiels, Jedburgh, Kelso, Peebles and Kelso worked with the education officer and a freelance designer to create large panels showing their town and school crests.
They used tens of thousands of buttons plus materials from the knitwear and tweed industries. The nine banners now hang down the glass facade of the museum.
They are stunningly beautiful. I am filled with admiration for this vibrant and fascinating museum. I had expected to skip through its displays in 20 minutes, but I was kept there enthralled for over two hours.
But – and it is a big but – I am apprehensive for its future. Local authority cultural projects follow a predictable path – enthusiasm for the initial concept; ingenuity in capital funding; unalloyed delight at the opening, with every politician and officer claiming credit; and, from day two, total amnesia as people and pounds move on to the next scheme. I wonder if Hawick appreciates the miracle in its midst.
The small team of part-time curators and volunteers deserves recognition. The amazing education work that has involved participation by local primary schools, regional secondary schools, Borders College and Heriot-Watt University has been spearheaded by a temporary education officer working two days a week; her contract ended in July 2010.
There is no budget going forward. Two part-time curators and a further two part-time museum assistants with a small team of helpers have a remit to run more than this one museum building.
If the Towerhouse is to continue to be a focus of excellence it must have adequate funding for new exhibitions, maintenance, liaison with industrialists and young people, and curatorial breathing space.
The lesson for the proud politicians and powers that be in the Borders is this: you can make banners out of buttons, but you need more than buttons to run good museums.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish
Cost £250,000
Main funders Scottish Borders Council, European Regional Development Fund,
Museums Galleries Scotland
Exhibition design GBDM Interpretive Design Consultants
Project management Rachel Hunter Consulting
Fit-out ESP Scotland
Cases Click Netherfield
Interactives Blackbox AV
Hawick, the largest town in the Borders and with a hacking cough of a name, is somewhat isolated. It has an urban feel, unlike the rural Waverley romanticism that drenches neighbouring communities.
In more recent centuries, the town was resolutely industrial, thrumming with looms. The harnessed power of the river Teviot and Slitrig Water sustained major textile industries with names such as Lyle & Scott and Pringle. Now shadows of their former selves, many mills remain as factory shops.
In the 1820s Hawick was described as a sort of Glasgow in miniature, a soubriquet much disliked then and now by both communities. But there is a link. Just as the Glasgow’s Miles Better campaign shrugged off the city’s industrial past by promoting culture, so the centre of Hawick has undergone a long overdue £10m makeover.
The Heart of Hawick project is, in grant-speak, a multi-agency arts and heritage initiative designed to contribute to social, cultural and economic generation. It has accomplished much.
A former weaving mill is now home to a theatre/cinema and visitor centre; the adjacent Heritage Hub is a base for the Borders Archive and Local History Centre. This is money well and wisely spent.
Almost unnoticed, picking up crumbs of grant falling from the tables of other projects, plus some small sponsorships and donations, the museum service has stripped out the previous underperforming static displays.
Realising that Hawick will never be a major tourist destination, curators and designers have created a homage to the textile industry, appealing to the repeat visits of local audiences. Their achievement has exceeded their ambition.
Teribus ye teri odin
Embedded in the museum building is an architectural secret. Drumlanrig’s Tower, built as a fortification in the 1550s, surviving fire, flood and dereliction, was later incorporated into a grand house and served for many years as a hotel, inn and visitor centre. Everybody I met in Hawick remembered with affection drinking in its vaulted bar.
That space now houses a nicely judged video introduction. For visitors a second secret is disclosed – that for all its dourness Hawick has always been at the centre of high fashion. Brands such as Chanel, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Paul Smith, Christopher Kane and Vivienne Westwood all employ the skills of workers in Hawick and nearby.
The words of textile designer Bernat Klein are emblazoned on one museum wall, “I dreamt of cloth vibrant with colour”, and this theme epitomises the building.
There is a tangible frisson to what might have been a boring exposition of industrial processes. The upper floors explain the processes of carding, dyeing, spinning, weaving and knitting through the faces, voices and experiences of local people.
The men and women of Hawick refer to themselves as teries, a reference to “Teribus ye teri odin”, the first line of the men’s battle cry at Flodden in 1513. This is sung every year at the Common Riding festival in June, an event the Rough Guide has described as one of the best parties in the world.
Especially endearing is that nobody knows what the words mean. They might be Scandinavian, Scottish Gaelic, or even Welsh. But they are chanted with gusto nevertheless.
Much of the exhibition technology was commissioned from local Media Studies High School pupils through a Warp, Weft and Edit project and is splendidly efficient. It’s good to hear the local burr rather than some homogenised infospeak.
Another surprising feature is a floor devoted to a catwalk of designs from elite couturiers, plus clothes created by students. It is emphasised that this place is as much about the future of textiles as the past.
There are some innovations that have united the community. Textile workers’ reunions brought in a team of volunteers. The most dedicated of them made up the collection management/documentation team, liaised with schools and researchers and found artefacts. This is clearly a passionate community project that grew from within rather than being imposed by outside consultants.
Uncertain future?
One initiative is particularly impressive. For six months more than 100 children from schools in Hawick, Duns, Earlston, Eyemouth, Galashiels, Jedburgh, Kelso, Peebles and Kelso worked with the education officer and a freelance designer to create large panels showing their town and school crests.
They used tens of thousands of buttons plus materials from the knitwear and tweed industries. The nine banners now hang down the glass facade of the museum.
They are stunningly beautiful. I am filled with admiration for this vibrant and fascinating museum. I had expected to skip through its displays in 20 minutes, but I was kept there enthralled for over two hours.
But – and it is a big but – I am apprehensive for its future. Local authority cultural projects follow a predictable path – enthusiasm for the initial concept; ingenuity in capital funding; unalloyed delight at the opening, with every politician and officer claiming credit; and, from day two, total amnesia as people and pounds move on to the next scheme. I wonder if Hawick appreciates the miracle in its midst.
The small team of part-time curators and volunteers deserves recognition. The amazing education work that has involved participation by local primary schools, regional secondary schools, Borders College and Heriot-Watt University has been spearheaded by a temporary education officer working two days a week; her contract ended in July 2010.
There is no budget going forward. Two part-time curators and a further two part-time museum assistants with a small team of helpers have a remit to run more than this one museum building.
If the Towerhouse is to continue to be a focus of excellence it must have adequate funding for new exhibitions, maintenance, liaison with industrialists and young people, and curatorial breathing space.
The lesson for the proud politicians and powers that be in the Borders is this: you can make banners out of buttons, but you need more than buttons to run good museums.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish
Project data
Cost £250,000
Main funders Scottish Borders Council, European Regional Development Fund,
Museums Galleries Scotland
Exhibition design GBDM Interpretive Design Consultants
Project management Rachel Hunter Consulting
Fit-out ESP Scotland
Cases Click Netherfield
Interactives Blackbox AV