Melrose to Harrietsfield near Ancrum
Saturday 12th June 2010
15.5 miles of walking including 13.5 miles on St Cuthbert's Way
Click here for all out photos from this walk.
We woke to a sunny morning and it stayed dry all day. We went down for breakfast at Dunfermline House very shortly after 8am, to find two other couples sitting in the breakfast room, whilst a third couple had already been and gone! Everyone was ordering at once, but the service was still quick and I enjoyed scotch pancakes with my scrambled eggs and mushrooms. The other guests turned out to be a Canadian couple who were walking the Border Abbeys Way and an American couple en route to their timeshare in Aviemore. Before leaving Dunfermline House we had a chat with Bryan and his wife Alison and met their delightful baby grandson.
We bought baguettes and apples for lunch then set off - uphill! We passed underneath the by-pass and shortly afterwards took a path off to the left, which took us up a long flight of stairs and then continued to climb across open countryside, with attractive views up to Mid Eildon and down to Melrose and Galashiels. We were soon walking through attractive yellow gorse and eventually climbed to a saddle between North and Mid Eildon. The guidebook encouraged us to climb to the top of one or other of these, but we didn't think it would give us a substantially better view and we still had a lot of walking to do today, so we decided not to bother.
We started to descend and soon found ourselves in attractive woodland managed by Buccleugh Estates. We walked through the wood and then followed its edge for a while, with lovely views (including back to the Eildon Hills, where Eildon Wester Hill had now come into view). We descended into Bowden, where a friendly local explained that the octagonal building was not Bowden's space rocket but a former well (in use until the 1950s when it was decreed that the water was not of sufficiently good quality). We took a short diversion to Bowden Kirk, an attractive building complete with a 17th Century Laird's Loft. Renovation work meant that we couldn't get inside.
The path took us alongside Bowden Burn then along a minor road from Whitelee to Newtown St Boswells. The guidebook rather has it in for Newtown, saying 'the two main features of Newtown are the large and not especially attractive headquarters of the Scottish Borders Council and the auction mart where sheep and cattle are regularly sold' and going on to quote an architectural guide which says that the council building 'dominates the village by virtue of its squat cathedral-like scale and utter disregard for its neighbours'. Actually I think all of this is a bit unfair - the part of Newtown that we walked through was fine.
We followed a nice wooded path down to the River Tweed, with good views, initially from high above it. We reached the river bank by the bridge to Dryburgh and turned right along a footpath, sometimes close to the river, sometimes further away or higher up, so there were a fair number of ascents and descents. It was slightly frustrating that we couldn't see Dryburgh Abbey behind the trees on the opposite bank, but the river was lovely and when we stopped for lunch there were two fishermen fly-fishing, one teaching the other how to do it, with a third fisherman slightly upstream. None of them were having much success and neither was the heron sitting watching the river from a stony 'island'.
The braiding in the river continued, but we left it for a while to climb up to St Boswells. St Boswells is named after St Boisil, who was prior at the monastery at Melrose before St Cuthbert. We walked past the village green in St Boswells, site of an annual horse fair, then along the main street before turning back towards the river by way of St Boswells Golf Club, with excellent views back to the Eildon Hills. The golf club appears friendly towards walkers, welcoming us to use the toilets and bar in the club house. The footpath goes along the back of the golf course then, when the golf course has ended, follows the river past a sandstone cliff on the opposite bank, then a mill and weir, then the Mertoun Bridge. The guidebook talks about seeing heron on the next section - we did see a heron here, but we had seen a couple previously too.
After following round a bend of the river and sitting down for a rest, we climbed up through woodland at Benrig, past the Crystal Well and the old Benrig Cemetery, then up a long flight of steps to emerge by Maxton Church (which is dedicated to St Cuthbert; the only one of the many churches with this dedication that you actually pass on St Cuthbert's Way). We followed the lane to Maxton Village on the main road. Maxton claims to have been the birthplace of John Duns Scotus, more often associated with the town of Duns (which we'd passed through on the bus on our way to Melrose) to the extent that 'Duns' became part of his name. Scotus was a medieval scholar and those who followed his teaching were called 'dunses', a mocking term meaning obstinate and by association stupid, and it is from this that our word 'dunce' is said to come.
From Maxton we followed roads towards the A68 but we turned left onto the route of the Roman Dere Street just before reaching the trunk road. I'd expected Dere Street to be a boring track, but actually it was a very attractive path, passing through woodland and then more open countryside. We passed 'Lilliard's Stone', a small coffin-shaped monument to the legendary bravery of a local woman during the Battle of Ancrum Moor in 1545. The inscription reads:
Fair Maiden Lillian lies under this stone
Little was her stature, but muckle was her fame
Upon the English loons she laid many thumps
And when her legs were cuttit off
She fought upon her stumps
About a mile after Lilliard's Stone, we took a very overgrown path to the right, which brought us to the back gate of Lilliard B&B. Mary Anderson met us in the back garden and introduced us to her husband. Mary has been doing B&B for 17 years and is trying to cut down now; for all that we had a lovely room and Mary is very thoughtful in looking after her guests e.g. providing fresh milk and spare cups so that you don't have to wash up.
We'd expected to have to either get a taxi to Ancrum for our evening meal, or walk along the A68, which was not an appealing prospect. However Mary suggested catching a bus and that is what we did; we flagged the number 51 bus down outside the house just after 6pm. We got a bit of a shock when we got to Ancrum because there were people everywhere - it turned out that it was 'Ancrum Fete Day'. Fortunately the pub, The Cross Keys, was still serving food. Service was a bit slow, but since we'd arrived early it didn't matter and we had very pleasant lasagne, with chips and cider. The bus back wasn't until 8.15pm and we'd finished our meal by about 7.15pm, so we went for a walk around the village and then down to the old cemetery (where Beatrix Potter's brother is buried) and the old packhorse bridge over the Ale Water. It was all very pretty and atmospheric athough it is a shame that most of the buildings down by the river are in ruins. If we had been sure of being able to get through Ancrum Park we could have walked back to Lilliard B&B from here, with only a short walk along the A68. However we couldn't be sure we'd get through, so we returned to Ancrum village and caught the bus back. The bus driver took us slightly too far along the A68, to Lilliardsedge Holiday Park, but it could have been worse; there was a woman at the bus stop in Ancrum wanting to go to Jedbergh - she'd missed the 7.55pm and the next bus in that direction wasn't until 9.50pm!
