The Herald - The Herald Magazine
The walk The Cloich Loop, Eddleston
Location: Borders Map: OS Landranger 73 Distance: 8 miles (13km) Time: 4 hours Terrain: Moderate low-level walk WHEN my friend Iain brought me a book, I didn’t imagined it would send me off on a pilgrimage to an almost forgotten cottage. Printed in 1935, the first edition included a foreword by John Buchan. “This little book seems to me to fulfil its purpose perfectly, and to do something which needed doing. The walks in the Peebles neighbourhood are not excelled for beauty and variety by those in any other part of the land, but the stranger needs a guide to them, for the multitude of glens may well bewilder the newcomer.”
I imagine Buchan’s foreword gave the book credence but its writer must also have held an authoritative stance at the time. It turns out Ernest Maylard was a vice-president of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, a past president of the Scottish Mountaineering Club and one of the first surgeons to be appointed to the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow in 1890.
What also surprised me as I read the book was that many of the routes sounded familiar, having clearly been tramped for decades. Occasionally a place-name would appear that I did not recognise; one such name was Courhope. I looked for it on the map – a wee building now lying by small fields in a forestry plantation.
I had the romantic notion that this shepherd’s house had been forgotten about and I would find it lying in a ruinous state. So I planned to walk to it, following Maylard’s directions with my finger on the map. However, I ignored his initial instruction to start through Darnhall Mains Farm and chose to go up from the familiar paths that surround Barony Castle.
The last time I had been here was in the dead of winter and the snow was clinging to the ground in hard cold spikes. On my return it was well into autumn and winter would not be far behind. The whites had been replaced by deep umbers that ran round the trees’ crowns making mats of leaves on the path ahead. I was not sure whether my journey was into another realm as my eyes moved up, down and through the treescape around me.
Leaving this avenue of former beech hedge, a leggy wall of beech contrasted with pines on the other side took me on to flat farmland. The following short road section had turned cobalt blue from the brief presence of sunny skies reflecting on the wet surface. The forestry track that took me past Cloich ran for several kilometres but the constant view of Dundreich and its neighbouring Donald hills of Bowbeat and Blackhope Scar kept me content, despite the rain.
As my way went downhill and started to curve below an area of higher rocky ground I knew Courhope was near; I was aware there should be black-faced sheep on the hills either side of me but there were mainly dark pines. A bit further on the sunlight accentuated emerald green fields on a gentle slope with the tiny form of Courhope on the skyline.
I found no romantic ruin here. The building was clad with filthy roughcast, the area strewn with agricultural rubbish, the fields full of chickweed, and there was no atmosphere of the old herd’s world. However, despite my pilgrim expectations being underwhelmed by reality, the route as a whole was interesting and varied.
I went back to Barony Castle by an old drove road through farmland before returning to the woods around the castle. Barony Castle is now a hotel and is open to non-residents for refreshments – they welcome walkers energised and weary alike.
ERICA NIVEN Route: Start and finish at Eddleston (GR: NT243472). Head up the drive to Barony Castle Hotel and TR following the Tweed Trail signs off the road and past the Victorian icehouse. Continue between avenues of trees until there is open farmland on your left – take the right fork between the conifers and at a junction turn right signposted Shiplaw. Continue until you reach a road. Go left on to the road and follow it past a house until the signpost left for the Cloich Loop. TL on to the forestry track. Follow the track for about 2.5 miles until Courhope is below you on the right. TL into the woodland and follow this out to Upper Stewarton. TL shortly after the cottage and head along the old drove road through Hattonknowe and back to Barony Castle.