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Walk 1 - A Capital View.

From Walking in the Pentland Hills by Susan Falconer.

A short, and in places steep, walk rewarded with magnificent views across the city and surrounding hill ranges.

An excellent walk on a crisp winter’s day when time and light are short.

1

Begin at the Hillend car park next to the bus terminus at the entrance to the Midlothian Snowsports Centre. There is a waymarker post here – follow the sign indicating Capital View Walk.

Make your way uphill on a broad path over grassy slopes, then through sparsely wooded areas with bracken, gorse and trees, for about 600m. Follow the Capital View waymarkers and finger posts from this point.

Keep walking uphill on a path through Hillend Country Park to reach an open grassy knoll at NT245672, near the ski runs. From here you can admire the views over the city and beyond.

On the top of the knoll are the faint remains of a fort, possibly Iron Age. All that is visible of its rampart is a low mound and a stretch of ditch and bank, but with imagination the structures that would have been here 2000 years ago can be visualised.

Descend the knoll on a path to the west, and at another signpost indicating Caerketton, go through the metal gate and follow the path as it zigzags up the bulk of Caerketton Hill. Climb up onto the ridge, ascending 100m in 500m.

The shrubs in the wooden enclosures to your right on the way up Caerketton Hill are junipers, one of three conifers native to Scotland. Juniper is scarce in the Pentlands and bushes are scattered (they may once have been plentiful, but there is some dispute over this – see Malcolm Cant's Villages of Edinburgh: An Illustrated Guide Vol. II). To help re-establish juniper in the hills, the Pentland Hills Regional Park with Defence Estates, Forest Research and TCV (Scotland) are undertaking a programme of growing-on cuttings and berries to plant in other suitable places. Berries, which do not form on the juniper bushes until the bushes are eight years old, are used to flavour gin, as well as making a peppery seasoning for venison or duck.

3

Descend Allermuir Hill by the same route over Byerside Hill and return to the bealach below Caerketton. Instead of climbing back over Caerketton (although this is an option), take a grassy path that goes north, leading downhill. This path divides lower down, and you should follow it as it cuts to the right across the lower slopes of Caerketton, overlooking the T Wood towards Hillend, and passingMuilieputchie (NT236666 – not shown on the OS 1:50,000 map).

The unusual name Muilieputchie is found on the OS 6in to 1 mile map of 1852, and according to S Harris’sThe Place Names of Edinburgh, Their Origins and History (see bibliography), may be British moel or Gaelicmaoile, meaning ‘hill brow’, and Gaelic poiteag, a ‘pit’ or ‘well’, or British puth. However this is disputed, and the name may have a Scots root, moolie meaning ‘mouldy’, and pooch meaning ‘pocket’, hence ‘a damp hollow’.
Viewed from Edinburgh the T Wood resembles a letter T, but in fact it is in the shape of a Maltese cross. It was planted in 1766 by Henry Trotter, to commemorate a member of the Trotter family of Mortonhall who had fallen in battle. The wood is mainly of beech trees, which cast a lot of shade, so there is very little understorey of other plants.