Category: Scottish Borders

Walks in the Scottish Borders. From the Cheviots in the South to the Lammermuir and the Moorfoot hills in the north, the Borders is often an overlooked destination for walkers. The Borders Abbeys Way, St Cuthbert’s Way, the Romans and Reivers Route, the Cross Borders Drove Road and the Southern Upland Way all pass through the region, while the river valleys and woodland provides great opportunities for those looking for a shorter walk.

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Tibbie Tamson’s Grave

Little is known of the life of Selkirk’s Isabella Tamson, known as “Tibbie”.  A woman of simple mind, in 1790 she was accused of stealing a ball of yarn and summoned to trial.  The thought of being considered a criminal proved too much to bear, and Tibbie hanged herself in shame – a crime in itself at the time, which forbade her from burial in consecrated ground.  Sympathetic souls took her to a hillside outside the town and laid her to rest on a hillside where she could be persecuted no longer.  This walk is a pilgrimage of sorts to find this poor woman’s peaceful grave.

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Loch of the Lowes and Riskinhope

“Oft had he viewed, as morning rose, the bosom of the lonely Lowes”.  So began the Borders poet James Hogg when writing of the Loch of the Lowes in his poem The Queen’s Wake.  The busy road passing by may have rendered it significantly less lonely than in Hogg’s day, but a short walk into the Ettrick hills provides an opportunity to capture the sense of solitude of a bygone age.

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