Hay's Way: Greggs 'rejected', 'weed tweed' and Bavarian folk - the quirks of Scottish Border town Selkirk

That’s what happened in Selkirk. Or so I was told by a barista in the town’s local coffee shop Three Hills. It is claimed the bakery chain set up shop in the town, but was forced to close down because no one went. Cameron's, the local bakery in the high street, is the favourite, regularly seen with queues for rolls out the door.

Aside from the Greggs-beating buns, Selkirk is known for its tartan and tweed. The town is dressed in mill factories, only a few of which are still active today.

I went to visit Andrew Elliot Ltd, a family-run mill in the town that still uses machines from the 1800s. Second generation owner Robin Elliot, whose portfolio includes tartan and tweed made for King Charles and the Fife Arms Hotel in Braemar, showed me around.

He told me the derelict mill opposite his had been raided by police just months earlier after a cannabis farm was found inside worth £1.2 million.

Despite being clueless to what was going on under his nose, word got out, to the point where people came to his mill asking: “Are you the man who puts weed into tweed.”

I had arrived in the town late the night before, about 9.30pm. It was mid-week, and I asked a man waiting by a bus stop in the centre if there was anywhere to eat and charge my phone before pitching my tent in the town’s campsite.

He said: “There are no decent pubs left, nowhere to eat out during the week. The high street has fallen into rack and ruin.” After a slight pause, he said “you could try the club - just say Adam sent you”.

I was given directions and headed down a dark close before arriving at some wooden double doors with a gold plaque to the right reading ‘Conservative Club’. My heart sunk. But with more pressing concerns in that moment than politics, I headed in. Passing a sign that said ‘members only’, I used my code - “Adam sent me” - to a woman behind the bar who gave me a warm welcome.

As I put my rucksack down, she leapt up to help me after a punnet of blueberries I had strapped onto the front burst and spilled all over the floor nearly knocking one of the elder gentlemen sat near the bar off his chair. I got a few suspicious looks, and it later transpired it was men’s night only. One of them told me they aren’t all actually Tories; many of them become members just because there’s nowhere else to drink. I met George Wilson at the bar, a Souter, the name given to people from Selkirk, and which means shoemaker, who was celebrating 50 years since being appointed the Royal Burgh Standard Bearer for the town’s Common Riding in 1974.

While the town’s history in the mill industry has almost fully moved on, the tradition of the common rides, which date back to the 13th and 14th centuries, is still integral to the local culture.

After spending four nights in the town, I saw what Adam meant about the high street, with there being little to no option for a meal and a drink in the evening. However, I did happen to be there the night some Bavarian folk session was on, one of the many activities the town has organised over the years with guests from Plattling, which the town is twinned with.

But during the day, with its street of independent shops, including Selkirk Distillers, an independent bookshop, Three Hills cafe with locally ground coffee beans, a farmers’ market, and Haining House, an 18th-century stately home bequeathed to the community, Selkirk went from giving the impression of being a sleepy Borders town to having a lot going on.