Location: Scottish Borders
Grade: Moderate hill walk
Distance: 5 miles/8km
Time: 3-4 hours
IT was a dreadful day but I was clinging onto a 20-year-old vision and that forced me to get out of the car, put on my boots and grab my pack and head off into the wet and misty rolling hills of the Borders.
All those years ago my wife and I walked the Southern Uplands Way and as we trod over the Kirk Road, an ancient path between Ettrick and St Mary’s Loch, we came across the ruins of Riskinhope Hope.
This is a deserted, melancholy spot where drystone wall boundaries still mark out the in-byes, tilting up steep slopes on both sides of the old steading.
‘Hope’, in this part of Scotland, means a glen with a meandering burn, and has nothing to do with expectation or optimism. Which is perhaps just as well.
Despite the obvious dereliction I could sense something of Riskinhope’s spirit of place – a little spot among the folds of the hills where people were born and died, laughed and cried, rejoiced and were saddened, worked and made play.
It’s almost as though some interplay of consciousness was at work and I was reminded of the words of a song written by Ronnie Browne of the Corries:
I walk alone where two hawks fly, where once we heard a bairnie cry.
I had never experienced such a strong sense of ‘spirit of place’ before and I was keen to know if I’d experience it here again. Sadly, I didn’t.
I’d set off from the old Tibbie Shiels, an inn close to
St Mary’s Loch. It was closed for a while but has now reopened.
The inn, frequented by James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd and Sir Walter Scott, was a popular meeting place and is named after Isabella Shiel, always known as Tibbie, the innkeeper who lived from 1782 to 1878.
The warmth of memories of Tibbie Shiel’s Inn packed with walkers in the old days held me in good stead as I plodded up the bulldozed track of the Captain’s Road, an ancient drove road, into the drizzly mist.
This road crosses the hilly country between St Mary’s Loch and Hopehouse in Ettrick.
The track climbed steadily all the way to the forest edge at Earl’s Seat where I left the main track and skirted down to the ruined farmhouse at Riskinhope Hope.
Today, my dreams of recapturing that sense of spirit of place were defeated. It was too wet and cold to linger so instead I warmed myself up with a fast dash up to Pikestone Rig.
The path was a good one and despite the clagging mist I found my descent path, a narrow and muddy route that dropped me down to the distant waters of Loch of the Lowes.
Despite the underfoot conditions it was good to come under the cloud again and soon I was heading down to another Riskinhope, this one situated at the head of the loch.
The map showed an onward path but the path junction at Riskinhope was a churned up mess of mud and glaur. I couldn’t find the ongoing path so I just followed the lochside back to Tibbie Shiels Inn.
Cameron McNeish
ROUTE PLANNER
Maps: OS 1:50,000 Landranger sheets 73 (Peebles, Galashiels & Selkirk) and 79 (Hawick & Eskdale) or 1:25,000 Explorer sheet 330 (Moffat & St Mary’s Loch).
Distance: 5 miles/8km.
Time: 3-4 hours.
Start/Finish: Tibbie Shiel’s Inn at St Mary’s Loch (GR: NT 242206).
Public transport: None to the start.
Information: Jedburgh TIC, 01835 863170 or www.scotborders.gov.uk/directory/28/walks_and_trails
Route: From the gate at Tibbie Shiel’s head S on the signposted Southern Upland Way. The track climbs gradually to the edge of Berrybush Forest on the E side of 446m Earl’s Hill. Immediately on the R is a grassy path, signposted SUW. The path, skirting Earl’s Hill, descends SW and crosses the Crosscleuch Burn by a footbridge. Pass the ruins of Riskinhope Hope, ascend W then follow it gently S on the grassy open NNE spur of Pikestone Rig. Just before the 483m high point, look out for a path on the R that slants back N and runs downhill to Riskinhope farm on Loch of the Lowes. Follow the rough lochside path back to the start.
Due to restrictions, we are running our favourite previously published walks. Please see
www.gov.scot for current rules
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