Selkirk's six-month silver lining

Published on Thursday 17 August 2006 12:49

LITTLE did the good people of Selkirk realise, when an Edinburgh archer named Charles Nairn competed for, and won, the town's most ancient and prestigious sporting prize - the Silver Arrow - that it would be nearly two centuries before the historical artefact was returned.

It had been customary for the winner to have a silver medallion inscribed and fitted to the arrow and for it then to remain in Selkirk until the next competition. Nairn was a member of the Edinburgh-based Royal Company of Archers, and when he won in 1818 he took the arrow out of Selkirk and put it on display in the capital where it has remained ever since.

Four years after Nairn's victory, the Royal Company of Archers was appointed the King's Bodyguard for Scotland to mark the occasion of King George lV's visit to Edinburgh. It has acted as official bodyguard to every monarch who has visited Scotland since and, while its role is now largely ceremonial, the Royal Company hold a special place at the top table of Scotland's elite.

In 1822 and perhaps buoyed by the prestige that comes with "By Royal Appointment", the company kept the Selkirk Arrow, effectively as a trophy, and held it securely at the archers' capital headquarters. The people of Selkirk protested, to no avail. They were in a weak bargaining position and their pleas to have the arrow returned to the town simply fell on deaf ears.

Spirited debate has raged for years about who should be considered owner of the arrow. Townspeople contended that because Selkirk commissioned and paid for it, then they owned the 25cm (or ten-inch) silver marker. The 550-member Archers claimed they not only won it but built a stand for the artefact and kept it in safekeeping, and therefore it belonged to them. Now at last a deal has been thrashed out whereby the arrow is displayed in Selkirk and Edinburgh, each for six months out of the year.

The new arrangement will take effect on 29 August when the arrow is taken to Selkirk in a secure Lothian and Borders police vehicle. Then in a colourful ceremony, Lord Steel of Aikwood - the first Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament and MP for Selkirk for 32 years - will present the arrow to town leaders.

According to Dr Lindsay Neil, convener of the Selkirk Regeneration Group, it has been a "long struggle" to get the arrow back to its original home. Nonsense, replies Captain David Younger, Lord Lieutenant of Tweeddale and secretary of the Royal Company of Archers. His company was "delighted" for the arrow to return to Selkirk during the tourist season and the agreement was not the result of a fight, or even a mild skirmish, but of a "happy compromise".

"They are determined that they own it in Selkirk but ownership would be very difficult to prove," Younger says. "We have looked after the arrow in Edinburgh for almost 200 years, probably better than the people of Selkirk ever did."

He has a point. The arrow was made in 1660 by an Edinburgh silversmith from a quarter pound of silver plate which had been taken from "ane Egyptian" (or gypsy) who was roaming the Border countryside trying to sell his valued material. The silver shaft was competed for that year at the town's St Lawrence Fair and won by a Walter Scott of Goldielands, near Hawick.

Sadly, the competitions came to an end in 1675 and the arrow wasn't seen again until 1818 when the author Sir Walter Scott, then acting as Sheriff in Selkirk, discovered it stored in the town's charter box. Some will argue it was simply left to gather dust. The upshot is that, when it returns in a few days, the arrow will be on public display in Selkirk for the first time in 331 years.

Sir Walter's decision to issue a challenge to the Royal Company of Archers to compete for the arrow in 1818 was significant in the annals of archery. In the early 19th century Britain was in a depression following the Napeolonic Wars and industrial unrest.

The Scot's writer and his great friend, the poet and author James Hogg, were at the forefront of re-establishing a sense of local community within rural Scotland. Both men were regarded as "paternalistic Tories" and saw the re-birth of archery and other sports as important to lifting the Scottish spirit. In his novel Ivanhoe (1820), Sir Walter describes an archery competition with the prize of a silver bugle won by Locksley, otherwise known as Robin Hood.

According to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, there were 19 silver arrows made for archery clubs in Scotland, the first being the Musselburgh Arrow in 1603. Three were made for St Andrews, two for Aberdeen and a second for Musselburgh in 1713. The others were for Meikleour or Rattray in Perthshire, Peebles, Linlithgow, Selkirk, Stirling, Edinburgh, Kilwinning, Dalkeith, Paisley, Marchmont or St Ronan's (Innerleithen), Kirkcudbright and Montrose.

Until scotsman.com contacted the Royal Company, the silver arrow – a wonderfully ornate artefact – had never been photographed. It is an important piece of Scottish silversmith history and provides rare insight into a part of this nation's cultural heritage that is largely forgotten.

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