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WALK 2

In Stevenson’s footsteps

Start/Finish	Swanston car park (NT240674)
Distance	6km
Total Ascent	315m
Time	2hr
Maps	Ordnance Survey Landranger 66 or Ordnance Survey Explorer 344

A walk with many historical connections, particularly with Robert Louis Stevenson. The whitewashed cottages of Swanston, T Wood and the Reindeer Cave all add to the interest. (This route can be lengthened by joining Walk 30 at Capelaw Hill – add 8km, 60m of ascent and 2 hours 10 minutes.)

1 Leave the small car park below Swanston village by a path that winds through some trees and crosses a small burn by a metal bridge. Just as you emerge from the trees there is a signpost indicating Allermuir, Hillend and Lothianburn, so follow the direction finger for Allermuir. Walk uphill on a stony track, passing a small group of stone cottages to your left, overlooking a communal green. These date from the late 19th century and originally housed farmworkers.

Thatched cottages at Swanston village

Continue on the track up to Swanston village, passing the old schoolhouse on the right. The early-18th-century whitewashed thatched cottages are a pretty scene, perhaps more reminiscent of an English village.

There is a bench on either side of the track, one with an inscription to Edwin Muir, the poet and novelist, the other to a former resident, John Roe. Go through the kissing gate ahead and follow the path up among gorse along the side of the golf course – ahead are T Wood and Caerketton screes. (On your left is a stone plinth with a map and information about The Pentland Way; Swanston is one end of the route.) Continue uphill, crossing a stream, and here take the path to the left – passing a drystane seat made in memory of Donald Graham, a member of the Friends of the Pentlands – and go through another kissing gate. Continue further uphill through gorse towards Caerketton.

2 Keep on heading uphill alongside T Wood and the golf course until you reach a SRWS signpost indicating Allermuir (this area is marked on the OS Explorer map as Muilieputchie). Follow the Allermuir path over the knoll to a wet area.

3 Just beyond the wet area the path divides, so stay to the right, again climbing uphill to the northwest of Byerside Hill.

4 The path continues on up to Allermuir Hill, where there is an Ordnance Survey triangulation pillar and a viewpoint. After enjoying the views (on a clear day) descend quite steeply to your right on a path to reach an obvious stony track at NT223660. (There is the option of lengthening this walk considerably by linking with Walk 30, to ascend Capelaw Hill, and return to Swanston via Bonaly, Torduff Reservoir and Dreghorn.)

5 Take the stony track north down Howden Glen until you reach a stone building, Green Craig Cistern. The infant Howden Burn – ‘the burn of the howe den’ (from holh meaning hollow and den meaning valley) – rises in Howden Glen.

Green Craig Cistern was constructed in 1790 and engraved on the door lintel is ‘Edinburgh Thomas Elder Praefect MDCCIXC’. Thomas Elder of Forneth was lord provost of Edinburgh from 1788 to 1790.

To the east of Green Craig Cistern, on the northern slopes of Allermuir Hill, is a rocky outcrop at 260m. It was here, in 1886, in a cleft in the rocks known as the Reindeer Cave, that a number of animal bones were found by RA Macfie, owner of Dreghorn Castle and Redford House. Most of the bones were reindeer, but there were also wolf, fox and horse. Speculation as to the identity of the carnivore that left them here has ranged from a hyena to a wolf.

T Wood with Edinburgh beyond

6 From Green Craig Cistern take the path to the right that skirts the foot of the hill, passing the aptly named Smithy Cleuch (from the Scots smailly, meaning ‘narrow’), and keeping by the plantations until you reach the path that threads along by Long Plantation at NT230676. This point is about 1km from Green Craig Cistern.

7 Go over a stile (or through the gate) straight ahead onto a wide track, which tucks in behind Torgeith Knowe, and some gas installation buildings on your left and a golf course on your right. Follow the track until you come to a large whitewashed house to your left, set in mature gardens – this is Swanston Cottage. From Swanston Cottage continue past a small lodge house on your left and the livery yard on your right. Return to the car park by walking past some converted farm buildings (now offices) and turning right when you reach the road, slightly up the hill.

Swanston Cottage, and indeed the area around the hamlet, has strong associations with Robert Louis Stevenson. The house was built in the late 18th century as a general meeting place for the Edinburgh city fathers. A second storey was added in 1835, the thatched roof replaced with slate, and bow windows built. Thomas Stevenson, Robert Louis’ father, took the summer tenancy of the house in 1867. The cottage and surroundings became the setting for many of Stevenson’s novels and poems, including St Ives and The Pentland Rising.

The Reindeer Cave at Green Craig