Tewsgill Hill and Arbory hill fort

[ngm1scot]

Today was supposed to have been a revisit to Cairn Table but for a number of reasons it failed to go as planned so I decided to head off into the Borders for a simple wee pair of hills. Or so I thought.

Both Arbory hill

Arbory Hill

and Tewsgill hill

Tewsgill Hill farthest away

are apparently not "hills" because they don't have the requisite 150m descent on all sides. But trust me they were hard enough.

Starting just beyond Abington village on the old road there's a biggish lay-by soon after you turn left. Not the passing place which you come to first.

Once kitted up, it was a short step across the road to the gate leading to the straight ATV track.

The only path

Once you reach the end of the track you reach a biggish flat bit. You get a choice here - if you go south (which means climbing UP the embankment you end up on the old Roman road and an easy route round to Tewsgill hill. But did I do that? Nope. I headed down to Raggengill burn

Raggengill Burn

and over the wall. Sherry my wee dog misjudged her footing and the next thing I knew was she had disappeared INTO the narrow burn. Thankfully she was on her lead and I hauled her out of the abyss neck first. She looked just like a teabag that had been dipped in cold water. Once across, it was straight up the side of Arbory Hill. Although there are no real paths to speak of, once you get over the initial slope up from the burn there is a worn grass path up the hillside. But it stops pretty soon so I ended up just zigzagging up the hill till I got to the top.

I'd seen pictures of the Hill Fort (built approx 500BC) on the web and from the air it looks much more impressive but it is a big bit of engineering: ditches and a wide circle of stones.

The hill fort

I know how I felt getting to the top: goodness knows how the enemies of the original inhabitants felt trying to attack.

A wee stop for tea and a biscuit and spotted the rain heading my way complete with rainbow.

Rainbow splitting the sky

I could see Tewsgill from here spoiled unfortunately by wind turbines and huge aerial but between me and the hill was another one with a fairly clear path up. However casting all of my schooldays geometry to the wind (shortest distance between two places is a straight line, for starters), I decided to head round the North side of the hill contouring gradually round, inevitably climbing towards the end. But where to now? I could see my target but once again not a path to be seen. Would I head towards the wall or head across the hillside?

tewsgill.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

Second bad decision of the day - I wandered across the hillside heading for the aerial and a patch of flat green grass. I followed this most of the way to the top and then headed back over to the wall where there was ... flattish green grass. In sharp contrast to the lumpy tussocky grass covering most of the hillside.

My camera battery failed and I didnt get my trig shot but I managed one of Tinto and a wind turbine or two.

Tinto from Tewsgill Hill

Another set of monstrosities

I headed south of the trig point after a spot of lunch to join the ATV track and back down to where I started. For some unaccountable reason, I decided to recross the wall and contour round the south side of the hill this time. Mostly a steep hillside with no paths so it was hard going on the old tootsies but after a(nother) dose of rain and hail ended up where I started at the Raggengill burn.

Whoever said that the Southern Uplands are easy hills?