Mercat Cross, Market Place

Image: © kim traynor Taken: 25 Jun 2013

This is a rather confusing structure which would benefit from an explanatory notice for visitors. A plaque on one of the side faces is dated 1902 and commemorates "Members of Selkirk Detachment Border Rifles Who Volunteered For And Engaged In Active Service In The War In South Africa During The Years 1900 1901 1902." It lists four officers and 22 privates. War memorials were often built to resemble historic mercat crosses but aren't. The main face bears the inscribed dates 1837-1897 which suggests that the cross was built to mark Queen Victoria's Jubilee, though they appear above an old public drinking fountain and it is not clear whether they also explain its date of origin. To sow even further confusion, another side face has a plaque from 1935 marking the quatrocentenary of the granting of the burgh's royal charter by James V in 1535. This could give the impression that the cross was erected in the mid-1930s and had the earlier Boer War plaque added. I did of course ask at the Tourist Information Office, but their interpretation that it was built as a Boer War Memorial didn't seem to fit all the facts. However, as James Small drew the structure for his book of Scottish mercat crosses published in 1900, I conclude that the cross is Victorian and came first, and that both plaques were added later. The fountain may be either an part of the Victorian structure or a later addition.

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