Introduction to Peebles

37km (23 miles) S of Edinburgh; 85km (53 miles) SE of Glasgow; 32km (20 miles) W of Melrose

Peebles, a royal burgh and county town, is a market center in the Tweed Valley, noted for its large woolen mills and fine knitwear shopping. Scottish kings used to come here when they hunted in Ettrick Forest, 35km (22 miles) away. It's one of hundreds of forests scattered throughout the Borders, and is very pretty, but no more so than forested patches closer to the town.

Peebles is known as a writer's town. It was home to Sir John Buchan (Baron Tweedsmuir, 1875-1940), a Scottish author who later was appointed governor-general of Canada. He's remembered chiefly for the adventure story Prester John and was the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps, the first of a highly successful series of espionage thrillers and later a Hitchcock film. Robert Louis Stevenson lived for a time in Peebles and drew on the surrounding countryside in his novel Kidnapped (1886).