Leithope Forest Drove Road Show path on map

Start location: Edgerston Tofts ( NT 701 110 )

End location: Scottish/English border at Hungry Law ( NT 747 061 )

Geographical area: Lothian and Borders

Path type: Drove Road

Path distance: 11.7km

Accessibility info: Suitable for pedestrians

Route Description

We don’t have a full survey of this route yet and would be very grateful to receive one.

OS Landranger 80 (Cheviot Hills & Kielder Water)

Heritage Information

This route was marked as a drove road by the Ordnance Survey in their first edition 6 inch to the mile maps, which were surveyed in the middle of the 19th century when the track was probably still in use by drovers, OS certainly named it as 'drove road' rather than 'old drove road' as they tend to do nowadays..

It is probably a path that was used by drovers with huge herds taking cattle they'd bought from the big Trysts, like those at Crieff and later Falkirk, to the big fairs in England.

The presence of place names like Thieves Sike and Thieves Knowe suggest that the path was also frequented by illegal cattle traffickers.