Arthur Phillips - The unsung hero of Glentress
This weekend sees the Tweedlove Festival return to Peebles for it’s 12th anniversary year. The annual festival of all things bike provides ample evidence of how Mountain Biking has become a defining cultural, as well as sporting, phenomenon in Tweeddale this century. The buzz in and around Tweed Green, right in the heart of Peebles, will reach fever pitch on Sunday with the winning riders taking the podium after the Pro/Am Enduro British Championship, with all race stages taking place in Glentress Forest. Many pints will be drunk, friendships struck, bikes tested and sold with basically good times had by all.
It is worth taking a moment to think about how this well heeled county town, Royal Burgh and day trip favourite became such a MTB hotspot. Regular readers will know that I have done a bit of research into this recently and unsurprisingly there isn’t one definitive answer as to why. What I can be sure of however is that one name, somewhat forgotten these days, kept on coming up and for me was, by a distance, the most intriguing part of the story. That name is Arthur Phillips, arguably the founding father of Mountain Bike culture in The Tweed Valley and the unlikely story begins over 90 years ago.
Arthur Phillips was born in 1931 down in Liverpool, with a family background in Wales. He was evacuated to Wales during the Second World War safe from the Luftwaffe bombardment and later undertook his National Service. His studies and career took him into the agricultural industry and to Scotland where he met Jean. They would go on to be married for over 60 years. Taking early retirement, the couple moved to Peebles in the early 1980’s. Arthur however was not ready for the pipe and slippers. He was active, a keen mountaineer and sportsman. It was reading a mountaineering magazine article in 1985 that he first read about the exciting new world of mountain bikes. Now, compared to the spaceships that will be thrashed down the hill at Tweedlove on Sunday, these 1980’s bikes would seem hopelessly crude. But back then they were revolutionary, cultivating a real spirit of adventure - see a line on a map and just go for it with chunky tires and gears taking the strain. We were some way off any purpose built MTB trails in the UK back in 1985. What the article on the magazine said was that these bikes could take some of the pain out of Munro bagging. Indeed, to this day you will still see hikers using bikes to get to remote hills such as Ben Alder or Derry Cairngorm. Anyway, Arthur read the article and thought it was interesting so he borrowed a bike and went for a ride. It’s a route familiar to many readers I’m sure - head up the Manor Valley, then cut across the right of way called Foulbrig to Megget Reservoir (recently built back in 1985). Arthur was hooked - this was the future, a retirement business plan formed and the Tweed Valley was changed forever!
Permission was sought and obtained from the Forestry Commission to operate a business out of Glentress Forest. People had been taking bikes into GT for a while, bombing up and down forest roads but nobody had thought to make it a business until Arthur. Scottish Borders Trails was born. A trailer full of bikes was located at Glentress and Arthur mapped our routes for his customers at GT and across the valley at Cardrona. He named some of these his ‘Enduro Trails’, taking the name from the existing motorbike tracks he used - but pre dating Enduro MTB by about 20 years! Uplifts were run, and relationships were struck up with local hotels to offer holiday makers something really different and unique for their Borders holiday - this really feels like visionary stuff given what the Tweed Valley would become. One of his greatest legacies was surely organising the first XC races at Glentress - a tradition which will see the UCI World Championships in the forest next year. If the organisers are looking for names for trail sections might a nod be made to Arthur???
Scottish Borders Trails ran for several years but by the mid to late 90’s it had run its course and it was time for Arthur to retire again, his wee business was wound up - retirement into the community life of Peebles beckoned. GT was ready to take its next huge step forward with Pete Laing beginning building of the Red Route in late 1999, but that’s a story for another day… Arthur sadly passed away in 2019 and Jean the following year, having lived out the final decades of their lives in Peebles. They are survived by two kids Alasdair and Sian as well as grandkids.
Would someone else have come along and done what Arthur did eventually? It’s possible, even probable, but he did it first, he had that vision which others then took on and ran with it. I think he deserves credit and to be better known, so I wanted to share this on blog to (in a very small way) do just that. In my researches I never got to speak to Arthur’s family and if they do manage to somehow read this I would love to hear from them - I hope I have done his story justice and not made any glaring errors. One thing I can confirm is that when I did my talks about Mountain Biking in Tweeddale this year the section on Arthur got the most comments and smiles of recognition. More than one person came up to me and said “I remember him, he sold me my first bike!”. His legacy is there to be seen this weekend at Tweedlove and in the phenomenal MTB culture of the Tweed Valley, not bad for a wee retirement venture.
Arthur Philips at home in Peebles in 2017 - massive thank you to the wonderful Natalie Martin for the use of this incredible portrait
Huge thanks to Peebles Life Magazine whose profile of Arthur some years back filled in a lot of gaps. Also thank you to Emma Guy, Tam Ferguson, Pete Laing, Neil McGilp and Steve Deas who all gave me great stories about Arthur.
