Around about Smailholm


Around about Smailholm

Sunday 21st May

The town of Galashiels sits within a horseshoe of low hills, with the ‘opening’ facing east towards the coast. Once you break free from the high ground you meet the low rich farm lands of Berwickshire running in easy sways and kleefs for nearly forty miles to the rough and dreary North Sea. The wide undulating valleys are topped with occasional small rocky escarpments, it is along one of these we find the main section of our route one blustery Sunday morning in late May. The small hamlet of Smailholm is our starting point to a  circular route that takes us first to the 15th century Smailholm tower, standing sharp and proud, dominating the skyline. As a child Walter Scott stayed nearby, his boyish imagination inspired by the tower and its history. The summer holiday season sees a warden in situ. He provides a fascinating and succinct history of this Scottish keep and the warring factions that marauded across these lands four to five hundred years ago. Free of any central control, local rivalries dominated within an era of national and religious upheaval.

We drop down from this high point and head further east across well-tended farmland, crops of wheat and oats already reaching to two or three feet, while yellow blocks of rape seed patch the scarps and valley floors. The day is not in keeping with the weather forecast. Instead of warmth and clear skies, the day stays cold and overcast, thick rain clouds scutter above us, with an occasional sharp blirt of moisture seeing jackets tightened and hoods pulled up. Maybe the dankness of the day affects our mood but what surrounds us has been shaped and fashioned into well-ordered fields, tidy and clipped verges, roads that run straight and true, producing uniformity to the countryside that is repetitive and uninspiring. We finally break free from this manicured terrain to find an impressive long avenue of trees and scrubs running close by Mellerstain house. A grand eighteenth century pile famous for its interior architecture and gardens.

Towards the end of this strange country boulevard we take a sharp turn right and head back west towards Smailholm. The route now takes us through woodland and narrow roads. We navigate from a small map that provides clear instruction but not enough to avert the occasional wrong turn and retracing of steps. As always walking involves you in the process of noticing. This days sees us spot a large curlew stalking in an open field, dozens of hares breaking suddenly from cover and sprinting directly away from us, a large buzzard crossing from one tree line to the next and an odd collection of scraps and hollows filled with animal droppings ! The last section of the walk loops us around a ploughed field and alongside a vast field of flowering wild garlic. The white flower heads running low beneath a cover of trees, producing a spectacular sway of form and colour. We finally reach the road side and return to the car through the village of Smailholm. While the route had much to offer we learn that the flatlands of Berwickshire do not engage us in the same way as that horseshoe of hills and deep valleys that lie further west.

 

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