Old Drove Road to Peebles Show path on map
Start location: Damside, NE of Romannobridge ( NT165 485 )
End location: Road end, Standalane, Peebles ( NT 245 416 )
Geographical area: Lothian and Borders
Path type: Drove Road
Path distance: 15km
Accessibility info: Suitable for bikes, Suitable for horses, Suitable for pedestrians, Survey required
Route Description
Beside the A701, just northeast of the entrance to Newland Cemetery, a wooden fingerpost indicates “Peebles via Stewarton, 10m[iles]” uphill along a No Through Road passing Romanno House Farm, and southeast over the hill to Fingland Burn by a broad grassy track. On the south of Green Knowe at NT186462 take the lower track and at NT188461 (where a track leads round the hill to Fingland) take the footpath through a gate into the forest, across the stream and east through the forest to Greenside (or Courhope). From there go uphill and in about 270m leave the main track by taking the right-hand fork to cross a forest ride and continue up over the hill, descending to Upper and then (along the Old Post Road) to Nether Stewarton. From there go east to the Lyne road and then south along it for about 500m, then turn left on the road to Upper Kidston. There, take a left to cross the stream and go round north and east of Hamilton Hill to a broad track leading to Peebles.
This route is almost entirely accessible to horse riders and cyclists as most of it is followed by the Cross Borders Drove Road, part of the South of Scotland Countryside Trails (SoSCT) network and one of Scotland’s Great Trails. The Cross Borders Drove Road continues as an SoSCT promoted trail using parts of the Gypsy Glen Drove Road and the Minchmoor Track. For the latest information visit the SoSCT website.
OS Landranger 72 (Upper Clyde Valley) and 73 (Peebles, Galashiels & Selkirk)
Heritage Information
William Roy's Military Survey (Lowlands, 1752-55) marks this old route to Peebles. It is shown too on the earliest Ordnance Survey mapping, but is first labelled Old Drove Road on the OS second edition maps.
Cattle were driven from the north to Falkirk, then down over the Cauldstane Slap to reach West Linton and Romanno, from where this route enabled them to continue to Peebles. In 1952's The Drove Roads of Scotland, ARB Haldane evidences that Romanno Bridge was an important point on this long chain of drove roads, citing an 1832 legal dispute in which it was said the Romanno Tollbar gained a large portion of its revenue from Highland drovers on their way south. If going south via Peebles instead, the drovers would there have to pay a customs duty, but they "had in return the right of grazing their beasts on a stretch of common land beside the Tweed on a site known as the Kingsmuir, rights of common pasture dating back to a Charter of James IV in 1506". From Peebles, the droves ascended the hills along the Gypsy Glen Drove Road and over to St Mary's Loch; their eventual destination being England.
