History

Establishment of Walkerburn

 

Henry Ballantyne bought land to build a Tweed mill here in 1846.  “Eccentric” Pilkington designed and built a new village with houses for the workers and for the Ballantyne family.  The new village came into being in 1854, taking its name from the Walker Burn.  Shops opened, a school was built and the railway arrived in 1866.

The Good Templar Movement built a village hall in 1877 and this is still in use.  The Church of Scotland was built in 1883 and the Rugby Club founded in 1884, as the 25th member of the Scottish Rugby Union.  A French style ‘pissoir’ was installed as a public toilet on the A72 beside the bridge over the Walker Burn. It is no longer in use! 

Initially the mill lade produced enough power for the mills in Walkerburn but as production expanded more cheap energy was needed.  In 1920-21 Messrs Boving & Co of London built a revolutionary system, pumping water from the Tweed up to a reservoir on Kirnie Law above the village then bringing it down to drive a Pelton turbine to produce electricity. 

A funicular railway was built from the A72 up to the reservoir site to haul up all the materials used in construction – a total weight of 3,650 tons was carried on the railway. As production in the mills declined, less power was required.  The system was dismantled and all that is left is the old reservoir.  Walk towards Priesthope from the A72 and climb uphill to the left. 

The views are magnificent. In 1904 David Ballantyne built the Henry Ballantyne Memorial Institute in memory of his father.  The Institute was built in red Dumfriesshire sandstone, next to the Tweed Bridge, to provide education and entertainment for mill workers and their families. 

The Institute was endowed with £32,000 and its management handed over to a committee of local men.  It remained in the trust of the Ballantyne family until 2000 when it was donated to the village. The closure of the railway in 1961 and a decline in the woollen industry saw the population of the village fall and shops close. 

The last mill closed in 1988. Walkerburn had the highest casualty rate during the Great War as a proportion of its population of any community in Scotland.  In 1920 the War Memorial was built by public subscription.  In 1997 the statue was stolen, perhaps to order, and another fund raising effort was made to replace it. 

Enough money was raised for a full size figure.  The new statue was unveiled by HRH The Princess Royal on 20th September 1999. The stolen statue was subsequently discovered beside the perimeter fence at Edinburgh Airport.  It was returned to the village and sits alongside the Mill bell on the A72.