This short stage is an easy walk mostly through farmland with just a touch of wildness here and there.
Mostly farm tracks and minor roads with a few footpath sections. The farm tracks can be quite muddy.
Bus at Melrose and Lauder.
Melrose.
Read about the experiences of our users on this route.
There are 2 reports from this walk - click to read them.
Melrose is left by the Chain Bridge over the River Tweed. This attractive suspension bridge was built in 1826 and renovated in 1991. Across the bridge the Way turns left (west) along the river bank on a path that leads to the B6360 road. The Way follows the road west a short distance then turns right on a track that climbs fairly steeply to a minor road, with good views back over the Tweed. The Way crosses the minor road to a narrower road running north. This is followed to a junction with a track which branches right and is followed across farmland with hedges, stiles and stone walls plus pylons and wind turbines.
The track passes under a line of big pylons and then goes between Easter Housebyres Farm and a small wood from where it runs almost in a straight line towards another small wood. At the edge of the wood the track forks. The Way turns left here, passing a small pool, and reaches a walled track. Turn right north on this and follow it as it undulates over little ridges in almost a straight line, crossing a minor road, to Kedslie Hill and then Bluecairn Farm where it becomes the farm road.
Not far beyond Bluecairn the Way reaches a crossroads and goes straight over continuing north on a minor road past Jeaniefield to Fordswell where it leaves the road for a track to the left that runs past an OS trig point and some small woods and under a line of pylons then across pastures to a larger wood and a minor road on Woodheads Hill.
Cross the road and continue north-west on a path beside the wood and then across fields to a stile above the Lauder Burn, which here runs in a narrow moorland valley, the wildest place of this stage. The path turns north-east here, staying above the steep slopes leading down to the burn, and crosses Chester Hill with Lauder golf course on the right before descending to a minor road that goes past Lauder Old Church, a white-walled symmetrical cross-shaped church that was built in 1673, and into the little town, which has shops and accommodation. There's an SUW information shelter at Burn Mill on the way into the town.
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