Step Back In Time
A morning on Dumyat recalls a time of old and unexpected alliances
A WORK meeting in Alloa at 10am, and a 6am alarm. Enough time in between to visit a famous hill: Dumyat. The hill stands distinct in the steep range of Ochils, high and craggy above the fertile fields of Clackmannanshire.
I parked up at Pendreich woodland, just out the back of Stirling, and crunched out along the gravel path from car park to hillside. The birds sang good morning from the silver birks, and the weak early sun rose through the haar.
Out from the pocket woodland on Pendreich, the path set a march across the rolling, rising ridge of hills and lead straight to Dumyat. The steep road from the valley to the car park has done a lot of the climbing already, so the route rises only a few hundred feet between start line and summit. This is an accessible walk for most.
It was early enough that I was nearly alone. There was only one body ahead or behind, a figure with a bike. At times he pedalled away from me across the exposed granite or bog-wet grass flats of the path. At times he slowed to struggle up a steeper incline with his bike borne on his shoulders, and I gained.
The view ahead was a dazzle of sun lighting up the gauze of haar, and my cyclist was a sharp black silhouette against the morning light.
He and I reached the summit nearly together and shared a quiet moment taking in the view. The shimmering bends of the River Forth far below, the proud height of the Wallace Monument on nearby Abbey Craig. The castle. The Three Bridges leaping the water, linking north and south. It is a beguiling place to sit and contemplate.
“Brian,” the cyclist introduced himself, as we got our breath back and started chatting. He became a hilltop guide, narrating the details of the view.
“See down there, by the river? That’s the glassworks. I work shifts in there. We do it all; whisky bottles, beer, juice. Then see there,” he pointed to a row of black
“Its huge steep face with its fort a crown on top; a fearsome foe Rome” so far from
roofed warehouses far below. “That’s the bonded warehouses. All the malt gets stored in there to age.”
I’m told that, between the distilleries and various bonded warehouses, there’s more whisky in this view than anywhere else in Scotland.
A minute or two later, and Brian was firing back down the path on his bike, leaving me alone on the summit. I checked my watch. Just after 8.45am. I didn’t have too much more time to explore, and there was something I didn’t want to miss.
On a low flanking hill of Dumyat are the remains of an Iron Age fort. I found its collapsed walls after a wee bit of searching around Castle Law, as the shoulder of rock is called. The scattered stones of ancient walls excited me. The people who had perched here two millennia ago were the ones who fought the Romans. The hilltop tribe were called the Maeatae. As Roman soldiers probed and advanced through the lowlands, the Maeatae seem to have collaborated with another more northern tribe, the Caledonii, and together resisted further imperial advance.
It was, of course, not the humble little walls of the small hilltop fort that repulsed the Romans, but the fearful crags of Dumyat. Its huge steep face with its fort a crown on top; a fearsome foe so far from Rome.
Historians say that it was the advance of Rome into the lowlands that caused the tribes of old Scotland to work together. The conflict was a crucible that melded peoples.
The Picts grew out of these uniting tribes, and the Scots grew out of them. The tribe left their name on the hill, as they left their ruinous fort. Dumyat. Dun-mae-at. The fort of the Mae Tae.
With a last look at the rickle of stones these people defended, and a glance downwards at the hilltop occupied by Wallace and his men a thousand years later, I set off at a canter back to the car park. A hasty change of footwear, then off to my morning meeting.