Walk: Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair

📌 Blantyre, South Lanarkshire
★★

O Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair! begins the old Scottish air. Close to Glasgow‘s southeastern suburbs, the wooded Clyde valley separating Blantyre and Bothwell is still as lush as ever. The two villages themselves feature fascinating historical properties: the birthplace of the most famous explorer of Africa, and imposing Bothwell Castle. The section of the Clyde Walkway connecting them perhaps doesn’t quite measure up to Livingstone’s Nile, but it’s still pretty pleasant. The other half of the circuit meanders unhurriedly through urban parks, grassland and forests; roads and railways are never far away, but some semblance of rurality is preserved all the same.

🌍 Location

📌 Start / finish on Station Road, Low Blantyre

🧭 O.S. Grid Reference: NS 695584

🛰️ GPS coordinates: 55.801143,-4.083861

🚆🚌 Train / bus to Blantyre (or Uddingston at north end of route)

🚗 Street parking

📝 Key info

► 9 km / 6 mi | ▲ 110 m | ⌛ 2.5-3 hr

Features: 🏛️ David Livingstone Birthplace ★★★★; 💧 River Clyde; 🏰 Bothwell Castle ★★★; 🌳 Redlees Urban Park & anti-aircraft battery

⬤ Easy | Various clear paths, muddy in places and some branches of the riverside section suffering from erosion.

➡️ Anticlockwise circuit: start & David Livingstone Birthplace (admission fee) – footbridge over River Clyde – Bothwell Castle (admission fee) via Clyde Walkway – cross river at footbridge 1 mi to north – Redlees Urban Park & anti-aircraft battery – Priory Plantation – start

Download file for GPS

🥾 On our last visit

Wildlife: Woodland birds, mallard ducks.

Weather: Fairly cloudy with some sunnier periods, temperature in mid teens.

May 2024