Celebrating the past with this year’s Hawick Reivers Festival

Preparations are underway for a major Borders festival next month.

This year’s Hawick Reivers Festival will run from 23-25 March.

From its earliest beginnings in 2003 this annual festival has grown to become a major event in the Scottish Borders calendar.

It has grown from one day to a full weekend of activities both in and outdoors including re-enactments, concerts. lectures, drama, 16th century market and encampment and a torchlight procession and fireworks display.

With the key aims to Explore, Explain and Experience, and with attractions to suit all ages the events give the audience a unique opportunity to experience life in this difficult and challenging period of history.

History and the present day will collide at the Hawick Reivers Festival

In 2018 the festival has as its theme Borders Kith and Kin and we are hoping to attract folks from far and wide who carry the Reiving family surnames.

Armstrongs, Elliots, Turnbulls, Scotts, Kerrs and many others will be represented and information will be on hand to help folks take the initial steps to trace their own family roots.

Many descendants of the Border Reivers settled in Ireland after the Union of the Crown and there are many similarities in family names, traditions and life styles. Hawick Reivers Festival hopes to build on these old links and establish many new ones for the years to come.

There’s something for all at the Hawick Reivers Festival (Photo: Hawick Reivers)

This year visitors can expect ghost walks and ghost talks, re-enactments of 16th century soldiery and lifestyle (with over 60 re-enactors expected this year), a Reivers Banquet and historical talks and lectures, medieval market and of the torchlight procession depicting the Reivers ‘Hot Trod’ – riding by Torchlight to retrieve stolen cattle – followed by a spectacular fireworks display.

Events kick off on Friday evening and close with a High Tea and lecture on the importance of the Border Tower Houses – not just castles, but homes.

More information is available HERE.

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