4 Minnigaff Hills
Walk 5 Merrick and Murder Hole
Walk 8 Cairnsmore of Carsphairn
Walk 9 Screel Hill
Walk 10 Afton Water
Walk 11 Criffel
Walk 12 Queensberry
Walk 13 Well Hill, Durisdeer
Walk 14 Lowther Hill by Well and Enterkin passes
Walk 15 Tinto
Walk 16 Culter Fells
Walk 17 Broughton Heights
Walk 18 Devil’s Beef Tub
Walk 19 Ettrick Head
Walk 20 Hart Fell
Walk 21 White Coomb
Walk 22 White Coomb and Hart Fell
Walk 23 Loch of the Lowes and Ward Law
Walk 24 The Wiss and St Mary’s Loch
Walk 25 Broad Law
Walk 26 Manor Head
Walk 27 Cademuir Hill and the Tweed
Walk 28 Glen Sax Circuit
Walk 29 Lee Pen and Windlestraw Law
Walk 30 Three Brethren and Minch Moor
Walk 31 Eildon Hills and the Tweed
Walk 32 Rubers Law
Walk 33 Pentlands
Walk 34 Arthur’s Seat
Walk 35 Blackhope Scar
Walk 36 Lammer Law
Walk 37 Abbey St Bathans and Cockburn Law
Walk 38 North Berwick Law
Walk 39 Langholm Heights
Walk 40 Cauldcleuch Head
Walk 41 Peel Fell and Kielder Stone
Walk 42 Hownam Law
Walk 43 Windy Gyle
Walk 44 The Cheviot and Hen Hole
Appendix B Information and facilities by area
South ridge of Carlin’s Cairn looking towards Corserine (Walk 7)
Queensberry from Capel Water (Walk 12) – its grassy slopes are typical of the central Southern Uplands
INTRODUCTION
Dun Rig and Hundleshope Heights from Kailzie Hill (Walk 28)
From the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea, one big line of hills stretches all the way along the southern edge of Scotland. The Southern Uplands – it’s the range that’s about as big as the Pennines but you’ve probably never been to. Here are over 80 hills of 2000ft (600m) or more – and the smaller ones are also important. And it’s a country with its own character – green and gentle, but with hidden surprises.
The Lake District, Snowdonia and the Scottish Highlands – UK walkers, quite rightly, clamber their rocky ridges and queue at their summit cairns. For this writer at least, and without wanting to be impolite to the Pennines, the Southern Uplands are the UK’s fourth great range. In terms of land area, it’s Lakeland three times over, or six Snowdonias.
Any walking lifetime should include some time – 44 days, say – in these distinctive hills. ‘Smooth classics’ we can call them, where the wind sings in the grasses, and clouds drift across an empty glen with its twisting river. Here are snowfields where the only footprints belong to a fox who’s just as chilly and bewildered as you are. From the huge views of the Cheviots to the mysteries of iced-over Loch Enoch, this lost bit of Scotland is your local Siberia.
Boundaries of the Borders
The Pennine Way approaches Auchope Hut on the Border Ridge to The Cheviot (Walk 44)
Logically – and indeed geologically – the Southern Uplands have their northern edge at the faultline scarp of the Southern Upland Fault, a clearly defined hill edge from Dunbar to Ballantrae. And their southern boundary is the wide vale of the Tweed. The Southern Upland Way, Scotland’s longest long-distance path, follows this band of high ground. Starting at the Solway, the component ranges are the granite slabs of Galloway (Section 1), Dumfriesshire’s Lowthers and Carsphairn group (Section 2), the Moffat and Manor Hills (Sections 3 and 4 respectively), the Moorfoots south of Edinburgh (Sections 4 and 5), and across to the Lammermuirs above North Sea (Section 5). This main range makes up the greater part of this book.
Across
