How You Can Help
Galashiels has already lost many important buildings. The purpose of this site is to make the town’s remaining heritage more visible, better documented, and harder to overlook when decisions are being made.
Improve the Record and Use Evidence Carefully
Corrections, better dates, reliable source links and well-documented omissions are welcome. Please identify the page concerned and, where possible, include the evidence that supports the correction.
When contacting an organisation or the Council, it helps to distinguish checkable facts from concern or interpretation. The Methodology and Corrections page explains how the site handles sources and uncertainty.
Galashiels Heritage Watch is a heritage documentation project rather than a collecting archive. Offers of historic photographs, films, documents, objects or recorded memories should be directed to the Old Gala Club. Informal memories and community discussion can be shared through Bygone Galashiels, while the Three Brethren u3a provides opportunities to take part in local-history learning.
Policy and Reality
Scottish Borders Council’s draft Culture, Arts and Heritage Strategy for the Scottish Borders 2025-2028 recognises the importance of protecting the region’s historic environment. One of its stated actions is to:
“Remove barriers to investment in historical structures and improvement of heritage buildings”
Scottish Borders Council, Culture, Arts and Heritage Strategy for the Scottish Borders 2025-2028, draft consultation document
Buildings such as Glasite Chapel, Bristol Mill, High Mill / Botany Mill, and 64 Overhaugh Street show why clear records, public attention, ownership solutions, and practical routes to repair matter.
At-Risk Locations
The four at-risk locations currently recorded on this site are listed below. Glasite Chapel / Kail Kirk is the most urgent current case. All four can also be explored on the Heritage Map.
- Glasite Chapel / Kail Kirk — Botany Lane, Galashiels
- Bristol Mill — Edinburgh Road, Galashiels
- High Mill / Botany Mill — Botany Lane, off Roxburgh Street
- 64 Overhaugh Street / Former J.M. Bookmakers — Overhaugh Street, Galashiels
Examples of Buildings Brought Back into Use
Buildings at risk can be saved. The Borders and nearby Scottish towns offer examples of buildings rescued through community action, institutional support, new uses and persistence.
The Bernat Klein Studio, Selkirk
This important modernist studio at High Sunderland was at risk after years of vacancy and deterioration. Its rescue shows that more recent heritage can be just as vulnerable, and just as worth protecting, as older buildings.
Source: Bernat Klein Studio image on Wikimedia Commons
The Ridge / Black Bull Project, Dunbar
The Ridge project turned a derelict town-centre building into a community asset and training project, showing how repair can also create skills, confidence and local pride.
Robert Smail’s Printing Works, Innerleithen
Robert Smail’s Printing Works shows how an industrial building can be preserved as a working heritage site, keeping machinery, skills and local memory alive.
Source: Robert Smail’s Printing Works image on Wikimedia Commons
Further Help and Resources
The Useful Organisations and Resources page gathers heritage bodies, listing databases, planning tools and research sources.
Contact the Council
If a building is subject to a live planning application, the most useful action is usually to respond through the official Scottish Borders Council planning process. For wider concerns about a building at risk, you can use the council’s general contact form and ask for the message to be passed to the appropriate team.
Email Scottish Borders Council About a Building at Risk
This tool prepares a draft message you can personalise. It does not send anything automatically.
After copying the text, open the Council contact form and paste it into the message box. You can add your own connection to Galashiels, any local knowledge, or a short personal comment.
If the building is also subject to a live planning application, you may also wish to check the Scottish Borders Council planning applications portal.