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Walking in the Southern Uplands

44 best hill days in southern Scotland

ISBN

9781852847401

Availability

Published

19 Jan 2015

Reprinted

10 Nov 2021

Edition

First

Pages

272

Size

17.20 x 11.60 x 1.50cm

Weight

330g

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Guidebook to 44 varied day walks and over 100 summits in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, stretching south-west from Edinburgh to the English border, including the Galloway and Pentland Hills. Between 2 and 29km, there is something for all seasons and all abilities in remote and rugged hill country.

Seasons

spring to autumn, plus winter days with good weather and snow conditions

Centres

Newton Stewart and Glentrool, Nithsdale (Dumfriesshire), Biggar, Moffat, Peebles, Edinburgh, Kirk Yetholm

Difficulty

hill walks below 900m, ranging from straightforward on good paths (Lowther Hill, Pentlands) to pathless and occasionally quite rugged (Kielder, Loch Enoch)

Must See

Merrick and the Galloway Hills, Hart Fell and Devil's Beeftub, White Coomb and Grey Mare's Tail waterfall, Pentland Hills, Arthur's Seat, Hen Hole of the Cheviot, River Tweed

ISBN

9781852847401

Availability

Published

19 Jan 2015

Reprinted

10 Nov 2021

Edition

First

Pages

272

Size

17.20 x 11.60 x 1.50cm

Weight

330g

Overview

A guidebook to 44 walks covering over 100 summits in Scotland’s Southern Uplands. Exploring an area stretching south-west from Edinburgh to the English border, including the Galloway and Pentland Hills, the routes are suitable for walkers of all abilities and are perfect for walking year-round.

The day walks, accessible from Newton Stewart, Glentrool, Nithsdale, Biggar, Moffat, Peebles, Edinburgh and Kirk Yetholm, range from 3-29km (2-18 miles).

1:50,000 OS maps included for each walk
GPX files available to download
Detailed information on planning, transport and local history
Sized to easily fit in a jacket pocket

Table of Contents

Map key
Overview map

Introduction

Boundaries of the Borders
Real remoteness
Rolling – but also rocky
Lists of hills
Border reivers
The Covenanters
When to go
Transport
Accommodation
Tourist information and other facilities
Maps
Compass and GPS
Safety in the mountains
Using this guide

1 Galloway

Walk 1 Girvan and Grey Hill
Walk 2 Ailsa Craig
Walk 3 Cairnsmore of Fleet
Walk 4 Minnigaff Hills
Walk 5 Merrick and Murder Hole
Walk 6 The Dungeon Hills
Walk 7 Rhinns of the Kells
Walk 8 Cairnsmore of Carsphairn
Walk 9 Screel Hill

2 Nithsdale and Lanarkshire

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

3 Moffatdale

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

4 Manor Hills to the Tweed

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

5 Lothian

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

6 The Border Ridge to Cheviot

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 A Walk summary table
Appendix B Information and facilities by area
Appendix C Scots glossary

Updates

February 2024

Walk 25 Broad Law

Paragraph 2: A contouring track is reached just above the valley floor (with a radio mast above). There's a fresh planting involving a new deer fence crossing above the radio mast. This can be climbed, with some difficulty, but the alternative is to head to right along the track, to go up a faint quad bike track next to the older plantings. After a steep start the slope eases off towards Hog Hill summit, and there's a substantial stile in the deer fencing.

(Thanks to Gordon Hodge and his friend Mick for the update.)

June 2022

Walk 15 Ford to Roughting Linn

Walkers should note that the crags on Goatscrag Hill hold some well defined and intriguing rock carvings. To find them, take a faint bracken path along the foot of the crag, to find the rock shelter at NT 9771 3701. The four carved animals are of no definite species, though one does resemble a camel. They're dated to either the Romano-British or the early Mediaeval times – making this a walk with five different ages of remains.

Thanks to reader Mick Borroff for these updates.

June 2022

Walk 25 Broad Law

A new deer fence runs across the slope of Hog Hill above Hearthstane. It may be possible to get through this by following the contouring track to the left (east) – if you should verify this, do get in touch with Cicerone!

Page 145-6 paragraph 2 amend to:

Continue straight uphill, soon meeting a contouring track and following this to the right below some masts through a gate into the forest. Turn up left up the forest edge, following the fence all the way up to cross a ladder stile onto open hill at the minor summit of Hog Hill.

December 2021

2021 reprint route updates

740 Southern Uplands 2021 Rpt Updates (336.523 KB)

December 2020

Route 11 Criffel

This route has been hugely improved, by a well made path on the descent route from Criffel summit towards Ardwall, in progress winter 2020 and due for completion spring 2021. The ascent path from Mid Glen to Knockendoch is also being improved, for completion late summer 2021. The upgrade of the paths from soggy bog makes Criffel into one of S Scotland's most attractive hillwalks.

October 2020

Rubers Law Walk 32

Walk 32

The original route up Rubers Law has been enclosed in high fencing for red deer – and these semi-wild animals are unsafe to walk among. The following route has been kindly suggested and approved by the farmer at Whitriggs.

After passing along Denholm Dean, the track beyond it runs southwest to end at a lane. Turn left to the lane junction where the road to right is signed for Bonchester Bridge. However, keep ahead for another 50m. As the lane bends left, take a track ahead into a small wood. Cross a shallow ford to gates at the wood edge.

Take the left-hand gate, and go uphill to left of a wall to a gate. In the next field, slant up left, north of east, to a wall gate. (But the field has livestock, instead head left along its foot then up the side.) Through the gate, head up to left of the wall, through another gate and again to left of a wall. As the field opens out, slant up right to a gate at its top right corner. This leads into open, heathery ground. Pick your way among rocky outcrops to Rubers Law's summit trig point. (Working round to the left to approach the summit from the north will let you arrive up a scrambly little cliff.)

The hill's East flank now has deer fences too. The waymarked path has been renewed. On p185, 2nd full paragraph, amend to:

Head downhill to the right of a wall and reach a gated path beside a deer fence. Follow the waymarked path through two further gates into the woods on your left. At once take a signposted track downhill into the plantation, to reach a T-junction just above the Rule valley road.

Reviews

"You can always rely on a Cicerone guide to show you the way, with its clear maps and directions, while also entertaining you with concise stories, inspiring future trips with great photographs and somehow remaining genuinely pocket-sized. This latest offering, subtitled "The best hill days in Southern Scotland", does not disappoint on any count."

Find this review in the May/June issue of Scotland Outdoors magazine.

April 2015

This guide is useful for both the occasional visitor and for someone who wants to explore some of the lesser known and wilder areas of Scotland.

The author, Ronald Turnbull, is again an expert in the local area with an in depth knowledge of every nook and cranny and with 44 walks there is something for everyone.

...There is plenty of detail in the walk descriptions and the mapping is detailed enough to warrant leaving the main map behind for short walks. The new style feels fresh and modern and my wife enjoys walking in this type of terrain so the guide has piqued our interest for a short holiday in the region. So all in all another great guide to add to your collection and the area certainly calls for closer exploration.

Read the full review on the Climbing Gear Reviews Blog.

March 2015

Multi award-winning guidebook author Ronald Turnbull is not one to mince his words. Somewhat controversially, but entirely typically, he claims the Southern Uplands are the UK's fourth great range of hills, surpassed only by the Lake District, Snowdonia and the Scottish Highlands, in this superb, comprehensive and entertaining guide.

There's plenty for Ronald to go at and... all the stories of these walks are beautifully told in Ronald's familiar rollicking style."

Read the full review here: Outdoor Focus, Winter 2015

Roly Smith, Outdoor Focus

February 2015

"Walking these hills offers an opportunity that is hard to find in other remote parts of the UK – the real adventure of wild hill walking, with no one for miles around.

The guidebook provides each walk with a wealth of detail; from distance, timing and ascent information, to the terrain and where to park, all accompanied by annotated OS maps and alternative routes.Other information, such as how to get to and around the area, and advice on preparation and accommodation, or background knowledge on the range’s geology, history and wildlife, is also included.

The result is an essential guide to discovering the best of the Southern Uplands."

http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/local-headlines/new-guide-opens-up-44-best-hill-days-in-southern-uplands-1-3680759

"The book fired me up to visit some of the rolling hills I'd neglected for a while... I really liked this guidebook and it will be in the top of my rucksack when I aim south from Edinburgh!"

Read the full review on Steven Fallon's website.

"Walking in the Southern Uplands" by Ronald Turnbull is a lovely little book that shows just how good a walking guide can be. Ronald Turnbull is a man whose name and books will be known to anyone who loves the Scottish hills and mountains, and whose knowledge of the subject is deeply impressive. And the books of Cicerone Press are likewise very familiar to and loved by hillwalkers, in Scotland and far beyond it. This book is the first we have seen that takes a new approach by Cicerone. In the past their output could be characterised as "excellent books in rather drab covers". As the cover image shows, they are now giving their books covers that allow them to stand out far better on the bookshelf: and, it might be said, do far better justice to the quality of the contents.

For many visitors to Scotland, the Southern Uplands are the hills they drive through on the M74, or glimpse from the A1, while en route to the "real" Scotland. They have been overlooked for far too long, and Ronald Turnbull does much between the covers of this book to help address that neglect. The area it covers includes some of the most remote and quietest parts of Scotland. And now many pub quizzers would know that Scotland's highest village (Wanlockhead) is in Dumfries and Galloway? Or, as the author tells us in his introduction, that there are more than 80 hills over 2,000ft in height in the Southern Uplands?

The content begins with an introduction of the sort that is obligatory in walking guides, albeit a well written and informative one. We then move onto 44 sections, each covering a different walk. Each walk comes with essential facts, an often amusing introduction by the author, a route guide, a nicely produced colour map, and a couple of very good colour photographs. The included walks are widely geographically spread across the area. Notable hills such as Merrick, Hart Fell and Cheviot are included, and a particular attraction is the wide variety of the walks on offer, from challengingly long to very short, and from hill climb and ridge walks to river and coastal walks. Plus an island walk, on Ailsa Craig, and, arguably, a city walk, taking in Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.

Undiscovered Scotland, Jan 2015

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usreviews/books/ciceronesouthernuplands.html

Downloads

Walking in the Southern Uplands - GPX File

By Ronald Turnbull

Ronald Turnbull writes regularly for TGO, Lakeland Walker, Trail and Cumbria magazines. His previous books include Across Scotland on Foot, Long Days in Lakeland and Welsh 3000ft Challenges. He has written many other Cicerone guides, including Walking in the Lowther Hills, The Book of the Bivvy and Not the West Highland Way. Ronald's weekly newsletter on mountains, hillwalking and history is at https://aboutmountains.substack.com/

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