About
Hawick occupies a unique position in the geography of global luxury: this compact Scottish Borders town, set in the valley of the River Teviot amid rolling sheep-grazed hills, is one of the world capitals of fine knitwear. The cashmere sweaters, lambswool scarves, and fine wool garments produced in Hawick's mills have dressed royalty, screen icons, and discerning consumers worldwide for generations — and the Borders Textile Towerhouse, opened in 2009 in a former defensive tower at the town's heart, exists to tell this extraordinary story of craft, commerce, and luxury born in an unlikely landscape.
The connection between the landscape and the textiles it produces is fundamental to understanding Hawick's industry. The Cheviot Hills and the Borders uplands have supported sheep farming for centuries — breeds selected for the quality of their fleece, their hardiness in the demanding upland climate, and their adaptation to a landscape of heather and rough grass. The wool of Borders sheep became the raw material for a hosiery and knitwear industry that began as cottage knitting in the 17th and 18th centuries and industrialised in the 19th century, when frame-knitting machines transformed domestic piecework into factory production. By the late 19th century, Hawick was the undisputed capital of Scottish knitwear.
The museum celebrates the full arc of this story — from the first mechanical stocking frames to the integration of luxury fibres including cashmere (imported from the cashmere goat-herding regions of Central Asia and processed in Hawick to a fineness that justified the town's global reputation) and from the early export markets of the British Empire to the contemporary luxury fashion world in which Hawick brands including Pringle of Scotland, Lyle and Scott, and Peter Scott command international recognition. Interactive displays allow visitors to handle raw fibres, understand the mechanics of frame knitting, and trace the journey from fleece to finished garment.
The Towerhouse building itself is of historical interest — a peel tower of the kind that once provided refuge for the inhabitants of the frequently raided Borders landscape. Its repurposing as a museum of luxury textiles is a characteristically Borders combination of the ancient and the contemporary, the defensive and the creative, the rough landscape and the refined product that it ultimately inspires.
Categories:
Highlights
From Fleece to Fashion: The Textile Journey
The museum's central narrative follows the journey of a luxury textile from raw fibre to finished garment — a journey that begins on the hillsides of the Scottish Borders or the high plateaus of Inner Mongolia and ends in the showrooms of international fashion houses.
Interactive displays allow visitors to handle raw cashmere, lambswool, and Shetland fibres, understanding why the finest cashmere commands prices that can exceed gold by weight. The dyeing, carding, spinning, knitting, and finishing processes are all explained and illustrated with original machinery and vivid demonstration materials.
Frame Knitting Machinery
The mechanisation of knitwear production in the 19th century transformed Hawick from a town of cottage knitters to an industrial capital of textile production — and the frame-knitting machines that drove this transformation are displayed and demonstrated in the museum. These extraordinary mechanical devices, capable of producing seamless knitted fabric with a precision impossible by hand, represent one of the great achievements of Victorian industrial engineering.
Watching a frame knitter in operation — the needles moving in programmed sequence, the fabric growing row by row — conveys the ingenuity of the technology and the skill required to operate it.
Pringle of Scotland: A Global Brand from Hawick
Founded in Hawick in 1815 by Robert Pringle, Pringle of Scotland grew from a local hosiery manufacturer into one of the world's most recognisable luxury knitwear brands — beloved by royalty, film stars, and generations of golfers (the Pringle argyle pattern became the unofficial uniform of the golf world), before reinventing itself as a high-fashion label in the 21st century.
The museum traces this remarkable history with archive photographs, garments, advertising material, and business records that document the commercial genius and cultural influence of a company that put Hawick on the global luxury map.
Cashmere: The Luxury Fibre
Cashmere is the undercoat of the Cashmere goat — an animal native to the high plateau regions of Central Asia, Inner Mongolia, and Kashmir — and its extraordinary softness, warmth, and fineness have made it the most prized natural textile fibre in the world. Hawick's connection to cashmere began in the 19th century and has deepened ever since, until 'Hawick cashmere' became a byword for quality in luxury markets from Tokyo to New York.
The museum's cashmere displays explain the origin of the fibre, the process of processing raw cashmere into yarn, and the reasons why the finest Hawick cashmere remains unsurpassed in global markets.
Collections
Wool to World Markets: The Hawick Textile Story
The full history of Hawick's knitwear and cashmere industry from cottage knitting in the 17th century through industrial mechanisation in the 19th century to contemporary global luxury brand status — told with machinery, garments, and archival material.
Luxury Under the Microscope: Understanding Cashmere and Fine Wool
Interactive displays explaining why cashmere and fine wool commands luxury prices — the biology of the fibre, the processing technology, and the design and quality standards that distinguish Hawick knitwear in global markets.
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.