Undiscovered Scotland

 

Halliwell’s House Museum & Robson Gallery stands on one side of the narrow, cobbled, Halliwell’s Close that runs from the southernmost corner of the Market Place in Selkirk to the free car park next to the Auld Kirk Yaird.

The close is named after wig-maker Walter Halliwell, who lived and ran his business here in the early 1700s. The house also named after him is part of the oldest surviving row of dwellings in Selkirk.

The narrowness of the close and apparently small scale of the building leads you to expect a fairly small museum. The reality is quite a surprise. Halliwell’s House Museum seems to occupy most of the length of the building, with the Robson Gallery in what’s left over. (Continues below images...)

 

Halliwell’s House is, effectively, the “Selkirk Museum and Art Gallery”, and it does an excellent job of presenting the story of the town and its people over the centuries.

The reception and shop are on the ground floor. Museum highlights include a reconstruction of an ironmonger’s shop which is replete with all the stock you might expect (and a lot you wouldn’t). The town’s industrial past is fully represented, as is the Common Riding Festival and its background.

The “Casting of the Colours” ceremony that takes place during this festival commemorates the Battle of Flodden, when the town sent eighty men with King James IV and only one returned, carrying a blood-stained English flag.

The Robson Gallery, at the Market Place end of the upper floor, is home to an engaging collection of contemporary art from both the local area and further afield.