SELKIRK, a royal and police burgh, parish and county town of Selkirkshire, Scotland. Pop. (1931) 5,667. It lies on a hill on the right bank of Ettrick Water, 6* m. south of Galashiels by the L.N.E. railway company's branch line, of which it is the terminus. There are statues of Sir Walter Scott in his sheriff's robes, of Mungo Park, the African explorer, who was educated at the grammar school, and a memorial of Flodden Field. Woollen manufactures and wool-spinning are the principal industry, and the town is an agricultural centre. Immediately south of the town are the beautiful grounds of the Haining.
As its early name (Scheleschyrche) indicates, Selkirk originally consisted of a number of shiels (huts), in the forest beside which a church had been planted by the Culdees of Old Melrose. David I., while prince of Cumbria, founded in 1113 the abbey, which was removed fifteen years afterwards to Kelso, and also erected a castle. Captured by Edward I., by whom it was enlarged and
strengthened, the fortress was retaken by Wallace in 1297, and remained in the hands of the Scots till the battle of Halidon Hill (1333), when it was delivered to the English. It was prob ably destroyed in 1417 when Sir Robert Umfraville, governor of Berwick, set fire to the town, and nothing remains of it save some green mounds and the name Peel Hill. The charter granted by David I. was renewed by James V. in 1533.
After the battle of Philiphaugh (1645), David Leslie, the Cov enanters' general, had some prisoners confined in the tolbooth of Selkirk and afterwards massacred in the market-place. From an early period the souters (shoemakers) were a flourishing craft, and in the rebellions of 1715 and 1746 were required to furnish the Jacobites with several thousand pairs of shoes. Though shoe making is extinct, "the souters of Selkirk" is still a nickname for the inhabitants.