Date: Thursday 21st August.
Drew did hope for a cooler day for this walk. It was like an October day cold and wet.
Ten braved the elements. It was dry when we left The Market Square
in Duns and headed down to the A6105 and up Bridgend to the turn off to the Sinclair
Hill Road. Half way down towards Wedderburn Castle the heavens opened and
that was the rain on for most of the walk.
We entered
The Castle grounds by the The West Gate, an archway butt defined by screen
walls and gabled lodges. The Grounds and Castle are private, but as we had been
given permission by David Home himself, we walked through the grounds and
round the castle. The Castle was designed and constructed 1771–5 by the famous
architect brothers Robert Adam and James Adam, with the work superintendent
being James Nisbet, for Patrick Home of Billie . He had already completed Paxton
House (using James Adam and Nisbet, with Robert Adam doing the interiors
c. 1773. (For those who were on the Paxton house outing they may remember that
was the country house built for Patrick Home of Billie in an unsuccessful
attempt to woo a Prussian heiress).
Wedderburn was where he lived.
We left the
Castle by the north gate and headed eastwards and north to the A6105 and to the
the old Railway Line. This railway
line was opened in August 1849 as a branch line
between Duns and Reston to the main east coast line. The line was extended in 1865 to join
the Edinburgh Hawick line to complete the
route from Berwick to Hawick through the eastern Borders.
However, the service ended after the
devastating floods in 1948 when the line west of Duns was
closed.
We followed the old railway
route westwards back towards Duns passed a farm that has Llamas and many types of sheep
but I think they were hiding from the rain! The views here walking through the
fields and looking towards the hills are usually very nice. By the end of this
part of the line there was a bit that was muddy (It wouldn't be a Duns walk
without mud!), some thought they had got something smelly on their boots but we
had only walked passed the sewage works. We continued the walk passed the
Industrial Estate and back towards the Square.
That was when the sun came out when we
were having lunch in the White Swan. It has a pensioners lunch on a
Thursday, two courses for £4.95.
Moira
(Many thanks for Moira for organising this walk, if not the weather.)
(Many thanks for Moira for organising this walk, if not the weather.)
