AN EMBARRASSING spelling gaffe has added insult to injury in a long-running saga over the restoration of a Borders town's crest.

Jedburgh’s historic Bridewell Jail was part of a refurbishment project back in 2019.

But there was anger among townsfolk at the ‘dreadful’ and ‘amateurish’ repainting of the 1720 town crest on the outside of the building.

Jedburgh and District councillor Scott Hamilton contacted the courts service to ask for the issue to be rectified.

Then came lockdown and the matter was put on hold.

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Finally, last weekend, the crest was repainted – but the spelling of the Latin term on the crest was misspelt, with an ‘H’ added to the word ‘prosHpere’

It read: ‘ET STRENUE AND PROSPHER’ instead of the correct ‘ET STRENUE AND PROSPERE’.

The artist who carried out the work is set to return to correct the error, but it has left some townsfolk fearing the project is somewhat jinxed.

Mr Hamilton said: “It goes back to 2019 when the court building was refurbished and they did a fantastic job on it and then when it came to the crest it looked like a primary school child had done it, it was dreadful on such a nice building and that caused a lot of anger in Jedburgh.

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“I managed to get a meeting with Courts Scotland a few months afterwards, just before the lockdown, and they put their hands up and said they fully understood, ‘we’ve made a mess here and we’ll rectify it’. Then lockdown came and no work got done and eventually they've got around to rectify it.

“Now they have done it and a lot of people are quite happy with how it looks generally but not at the incorrect spelling of one of the Latin words.

“The person who did it, who is not a local person, has said he will come back and rectify it.

“Overall the work carried out is quite welcome, it’s just this one spelling mistake which has caused a bit of upset in the town.”