Interactive map of the reivers' world

It’s fair to say that when I started this series, I didn’t realise how much research I would need to do! After all, I was born and bred in the Borders and had read lots of books about the reivers: how hard could it be to recreate this fascinating world?

It was only as I sketched out a skeleton of The Trail of Blood that I knew I would have to think again. I kept stumbling over place-names that had changed over the years; events that had been passed down in legend but had probably never happened; facts that were asserted by respected textbooks, that turned out not to be facts at all.

I wished there were a central database, capturing all things reiver-related in one, easily-searchable place. And when I discovered there wasn’t one, I made one for myself.

The first step was obviously to search every record I could find. Yes, I went through all my reference books again: such as Steel Bonnets by George McDonald Fraser, The Reivers by Alistair Moffat, The Border Reivers by Godfrey Watson and Hot Trod by John Sadler. But I also returned to ancient resources like the Border Calendars, the Letters of Henry VIII, the Diurnal and Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials.

I gathered so much data that I then realised I needed to capture it visually and in an easily searchable form. So at this point, I started looking at maps. There was already a special OS Map (In search of the Border reivers), which was a good start. But it only contained the highlights (hundreds of data-points, not thousands as I had by this stage) and was obviously limited as a physical map. This prompted me to look at digital tools and eventually to Google Maps, as it seemed to be the most intuitive package: not just for end-users but for an old technophobe like me!

I now began the laborious task of transferring all my notes into Google Maps: a Herculean labour which took months, especially as I had just started writing The Dance of Vipers.

I had to make some decisions along the way. For instance, I expanded the scope to include The Wars of Independence (not strictly reiver-related, but it seemed silly to exclude the various battles and burnings from a map of the local violence.) I also cherry-picked some data from neighbouring regions (especially East Lothian and Midlothian) as the conflict often spread beyond the true Border counties.

Finally I had to accept imperfection. Apart from anything, the vast majority of reiving activity probably went unrecorded; then many reports lacked a specific date or place; and no doubt I’ll have made the odd human error, capturing so much data. Frankly, I could have gone on hunting for nuggets forever – and given up writing altogether!

As it is, I’m pretty pleased with this unique resource. And I will update it from time to time, so if you have any suggestions drop me an email at hello@aknairn.com

Meanwhile, enjoy exploring the mayhem!