Common Riding
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Common Riding is an annual event celebrated in Border towns, to commemorate the times of the past when local men risked their lives in order to protect their town and people.
The Hawick Common Riding commemorates a victory of local youths over a larger and better trained English raiding party in 1514, who had planned to sack and burn the town.
The Selkirk Common Riding remembers the young men who rode around their town’s boundaries checking for encroachments by neighboring settlements. The job was one often brimming with danger, with risk of murder or kidnapping never far from the minds of those who ventured out. It also remembers how after the disastrous Battle of Flodden Field only one man from the town returned.
Today Common Ridings attract large numbers of crowds gathering from all around the world, as Borders pay respects to those who risked their lives protecting the towns people. The mounted procession around the towns lands is usually lead by a Standard Bearer or Callants, who is picked from the towns young men
The oldest Common Ridings are held at Hawick, Selkirk, Langholm and Lauder, with histories tracing back over hundreds of years, though most border towns hold some type of similar event each year.
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