There are some very famous and very old trade routes throughout the world like the Silk Road, which was a network of routes that crossed the Asian continent to penetrate into Africa and Europe. It generated wealth for traders travelling the route and the rest and supply stops that grew up along them.

However, trade is necessary everywhere and has permeated every corner of the world, including Scotland. The most obvious and significant trade that led to the creation of a network of routes was for the purposes of droving. Droving trade was so successful and involved the whole of Scotland so comprehensively that a huge network of routes specifically for the trade sprouted up. They are so important and there are so many of them that we have dealt with them in their own chapter within this book.

This chapter is interested in the less well-known types of trade route such as the fish roads, the postie paths and the medieval salters’ roads.