Welcome to the 2018 Hawick Reivers Festival

We hope you are all ready to enjoy and participate in this year’s festival which is jam packed with fun events for all the family.

We are delighted to welcome re-enactors from far and wide to the Reivers Encampment - particularly welcoming back our guests from Northern Ireland to swell the local ranks and there will also be the return of some “rough justice” dispensed at our Reivers Trials as part of the 16th Century Market. Full details of all events are contained in our programme, in which we are sure you will find much of interest.

For over 300 years, whilst Scotland and England fought battle after battle, those living on both sides of the border made a living by “reiving” or raiding their neighbours’ property. They had their own system of laws and justice, and introduced new words into the English language, such as “bereaved” and “blackmail”. Their first allegiance was to their own family and their surname. Kith and Kin meant everything to them. Their enemies were not the English or the Scots,but any surnames at feud with them, no matter which side of the border they occupied.

Do you have a Border Reiver surname? The 2018 Hawick Reivers Festival welcomes you to explore your family’s past with us here in the heart of reiving country. See how they lived and fought. Find their homelands and their strongholds. Perhaps even meet some of your own kith and kin.

Hawick Reivers Festival is run on a not-for-profit basis by Hawick Reivers Association, and is indebted to: Event Scotland Clan Fund; SBC Community Grant Scheme; Hawick Common Good Fund; and all of our local sponsors. Without their help, the festival would not be possible.