Walk: On Cademuir Hill – a writer’s round

📌 Peebles, Scottish Borders
★★★

Long before the town of Peebles was founded, iron age settlers established three great hill forts on nearby Cademuir Hill. Much later in the 1890s, budding author John Buchan wrote a short story entitled On Cademuir Hill about the local landscape. Fittingly then, the recently opened John Buchan Way provides the route for the first half of this varied circuit, visiting the trio of forts with superb views over the Manor Water – meandering haphazardly “like the scrawl of a pen of a bad writer” as perfectly described by Buchan. Views are a little more restricted for the return along the River Tweed, but with plenty to look out for including an old viaduct and a couple of imposing tower houses, as well as the river itself.

📷 Chronological photo guide

🌍 Location

📌 Start / finish on Kingsmeadows Road (B7062), 5-min walk south of Peebles town centre

🧭 O.S. Grid Reference: NT 252402

🛰️ GPS coordinates: 55.649360,-3.190168

🚌 Bus to Peebles

🚗 Kingsmeadows car park

📝 Key info

▶ 13 km / 8 mi | ▲ 240 m | ⌛ 3.5-4 hr

Features: △ Cademuir Hill middle top (407 m); 🏰 Cademuir Hill forts; 🏰 Barns Tower & House; 💧 River Tweed; 🏰 Neidpath Castle; 🏠 Peebles ★★★ & town sights

⬤ Moderate | Mostly clear paths and tracks with fairly gentle gradients, occasionally muddy. Brief pathless section on descent from Cademuir Hill, and a couple of short stretches of minor road.

➡️ Clockwise circuit: start – Cademuir Hill forts via John Buchan Way – descend northwest off ridge at 🧭 NT 223371 – Milton – Kirkton Manor – Barns Tower & House – return to stile at 🧭 NT 217388 – River Tweed – cross bridge at 🧭 NT 229395 – Neidpath Castle by north bank – Peebles & town sights – start

Download file for GPS

🥾 On our last visit

Wildlife: Loads of pregnant ewes; starlings and other small birds; mallards and goosanders on the Tweed.

Weather: Unbroken sunshine, though a bit hazy. Generally just above freezing; a little windy higher up.

January 2017 (some photos more recent)