THEMERRICK
Jim Perrin pays homage to an understated Borders hill with grand views, and to a naturalist with great foresight
‘...there marched into view a great empty sweep of moorland, an undulating plain which rolled away into steeper, desolate and rocky hills, with still higher peaks standing distantly behind them. The prevailing colours were drab, but intricately varied; pale, bleached straw of Flying Bent on damper ground, red-brown of Heather and rusty dead Bracken in drier places, and a great deal of steely grey or even white of exposed granite rock. It was a strangely unfamiliar scene, with a tapestry of tone quite different from the greener fells of Lakeland and the Pennine scarp. These were like no other hills I had ever seen before.’ Derek Ratcliffe, In Search of Nature (Peregrine Books, 2000)
“THE RANGE of the Awful Hand”! So called because in plan it looks like the fingers of a hand, and when the sun is westering it casts its shadows thus, reaching out as though to grasp and draw nearer to it the Dungeon range of hills to the east. The Merrick, its loftiest summit, is one of Scotland’s most distinctive and remote Corbetts. At 2764 feet (843 metres) it’s quite a high one too, and as characterful, littletrodden and atmospheric as you could wish. There’s an immense sense of isolation and remove about it, and views as long, perhaps, as you’ll find anywhere in the British hills. I’ve seen The Merrick from the summit of Yr Wyddfa on a bitterly cold, clear, anti-cyclonic winter’s day; but a visit here is a long way from the sometimes madding crowds of Snowdon.
My fascination with Galloway dates from being handed a sheet of paper at the start of my GCE ‘O’ Level Geography exam back in 1962. It was a copy taken from an OS map. Its focus was on The Merrick’s lower southern cousin, Criffel. Poring over the detail, relief and nomenclature of the area was somehow inspiring; and also, I could connect, having seen the hill itself rearing above the shimmering Celtic patterns of the Solway sands when I looked across from the summit of Skiddaw.
But it was years before I made it to Galloway.
First acquaintance came about through a phone call to me in Wales one night from a friend, who asked me to pick her up next day from a pub in Newton Stewart. On arrival I proposed a walk, knowing she was game for most things. We drove to Glen Trool car park. A cairn nearby commemorates the battle of Glen Trool – first skirmish in the long guerrilla campaign Robert the Bruce fought before securing the crown of an independent Scotland. From the parking a sign points out the path. In half an hour you reach the old shepherd’s cottage of Culsharg (close to Caldon farm, which is where Derek Ratcliffe stayed in 1946 on his earliest exploration of Galloway). It was not then as it is now.
Its site near the western end of Loch Trool is now entirely afforested, thanks to post-war government policy. Huge tracts of land countrywide have disappeared under conifer plantation since the1940s, much of this having taken place in Galloway.
“After supper I walked up the Caldons Burn behind the house, and ran up the first slope, full of excitement at the prospect of exploring these hills. The Merrick range looked inviting, rising high beyond the far side of Loch Trool, and I resolved to start there.”
Ratcliffe throughout his distinguished career as an ecologist was outspoken in his criticism of government environmental policy and its effect on natural habitat and landscape affect.
Here he is from his authoritative and illuminating Bird Life of Mountain and Upland (Cambridge University Press, 1990):
“Wildlife conservation is a global concern, and Britain has recognized its global obligations ... it is deplorable that the present British government appears to react with xenophobic outrage at pressure for observance of these international obligations.”
That was written over thirty years ago. Since then, we’ve witnessed habitat loss and resulting species decline on an appalling scale: merlin, hen harrier, golden eagle, raven, red grouse, golden plover, curlew, snipe, dunlin, greenshank, dipper – so many of the pleasures sightings have brought us in the outdoors have been taken from us.
Beyond Culsharg bothy the path continues on to Benyellary. It’s a steep ascent to its summit, from which the broad ridge known as Neive of the Spit takes you to The Merrick’s OS pillar – a rare viewpoint! As I stood there with my rackety friend in the year Ratcliffe’s book appeared, I remember thinking of him and his work with gratitude – a response the politicians of Britain sadly seem not to have shared. Read him and learn!
MAPS: OS Landranger 77, Dalmallington and New Galloway; OL Explorer 318 Galloway Forest Park North FURTHER READING: Anything and everything written by Derek Ratcliffe, particularly his last book, Galloway and The Borders (Collins New Naturalist series 2007). Nature’s Conscience: The Life and Legacy of Derek Ratcliffe (Langford Press, 2015) is a fascinating, weighty tribute to one of Britain’s most significant and pioneering ecologists. Ronald Turnbull’s Walking in the Southern Uplands (Cicerone, 2015) is a useful practical guide to this fascinating area. And the same author’s Book of the Bivvy may come in useful on some of the longer excursions in the region. FACILITIES: Glentrool Visitor Centre has a café, Newton Stewart has pubs.
“There’s an immense sense of isolation and remove about it, and views as long, perhaps, as you’ll find anywhere in the British hills”