People and places


People and places
Ashiestiel Hill – 4th November 2017
 
Within thirty minutes we had reached the high point of the walk. Ashiestiel hill sits back from the A72, on ground above the long closed Peel hospital, a WW2 army hospital, converted to civilian use after the war before final closure in 1988. At twelve hundred feet the hill  provides a remarkable prospect over the Border terrain . Remarkable also, is the scarcity of farm dwellings or human habitation. A few large houses are tucked into the folds of the hill on the ground above the main road but nothing else takes the eye. The rough ground we have covered to reach this point is fit only for grazing, sheep and cattle scavenge among the heather and reeds to feed on hidden patches of grass and sedge. Most hills have some covering of conifers, either encasing or bisecting the hillside or appearing in ordered blocks of deep green on the flanks of the valleys. Fields, won back from the wildness of the place, often push their way up from the valley floor, demarked by stone dykes or nudged against the side of a planation. Looking west, a farmer steers a small flock of sheep into a field high up between the cleft of two hills, looking neat and prim, its blaze of green stands out from the darker colours of the surrounding tulach. Only on the lower ground, close to stream and roadways are houses found. The steeper ground given over to livestock and heather. Stewart (2016) describes how after the Union of the crowns in 1604, the management of land changed between Scotland and England*.  A different legal system allowed the development of large estates north of the border, while in Cumbrian and Northumberland, the largely medieval system of small holdings remained intact, allowing families to pass on their land, unchanged, through the generations. The estates of southern Scotland saw the population moved into newly created small mill towns and the land given over to a more organised and controlled form of agriculture. The sparsely occupied landscape we see today is the result of decisions made four hundred years ago.
From the top of Ashiestiel hill we descend to the valley floor below, intending to then loop south and return to the starting point. After weeks of gloom today is clear and bright, a warm autumn sun producing a brilliance of light that captures everywhere the colours of the season. A steep section of hill gives way to a grey fall of scree collared by an arc of bracken, gold tinged by the vivid sun. Reaching the road below, we proceed through shanks of light standing between the deep shade produced by ranks of oak and beech. The crimson berries of rowan, holly and rose hip, glisten and sparkle from hedgerows and road banks. Now on the valley floor we lift our gaze to the surrounding hill tops, the perspective constantly changing as we follow the winding road back to the start point.  
On a day like this it is impossible to fault the beauty and appeal of the Border hills but they have not always encouraged approval.  They are of course humbled against the grandeur of the highlands or the height and majesty of the Alps. Washington Irvine, during his travels in Scotland in 1816**, went a step further and describes them as ….”a mere succession of gray waving hills, line beyond line, as far as my eye could reach; monotonous in their aspect and destitute of trees’. I wonder if his outlook would change if he were to accompany us on this morning’s walk. For trees are everywhere, dressing the high ground, framing the river verges and edging every track and byway. Sometimes the hills seem only as back drop, providing a stage for the serried lines of planted conifers or a platform for the magnificence of oaks and beech and elm, dating back hundreds of years, individualistic and proud, grand occupiers of the land. Without them, particularly from high ground, the ‘line upon line’, of ‘waving hills’, would indeed look dull and repetitive. Trees break this monotony while adding shape and colour to the landscape. Often,  the barrenness of empty hills is the very thing that appeals, but here among these southern uplands, the multi-textured canopy, pronounced at this time of the year, adds a glorious decoration to these ‘gray’ waving hills. They have in many respects come to replace the people who once occupied these lands, human progress removing the ‘human’ from a place they once dominated.
*Stewart R. (2016) The Marches. Border walks with my father. London: Vintage
**Skinner Sawyers J. (ed) (2001) The Road North. Glasgow: The In Pinn
Below Ashiestiel Hill

 

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