📌 Duns, Scottish Borders
★★
🛠️ Route partially blocked by storm damage – see below (checked April 2024)
Curiously-named Hen Poo loch is the centrepiece to the rolling estate around Duns Castle: an imposing (and private) Gothic mansion with a 14th century core. This undramatic but pleasant circuit visits the loch as well as the estate’s other highlights, starting from the attractive town of Duns itself. The high point of the route is at Duns Law – a grassy prominence and former fort with an outlook over the town to the distant Cheviot Hills – while later on, the route mostly uses more level paths and tracks through woodland. Pop into the Jim Clark Motorsport Museum on the longish road walk back to the start.
📷 Chronological photo guide
🌍 Location
📌 Start / finish on Castle Street, 200m north of Duns town centre
🧭 O.S. Grid Reference: NT 784541
🛰️ GPS coordinates: 55.779855,-2.345715
🚌 Bus to Duns
🚗 Street parking
📝 Key info
▶ 7 km / 4 mi | ▲ 130 m | ⌛ 2 hr
Features: 🏠 Duns ★★; △ Duns Law (218 m); ✞ Covenanters Cairn; 💧 Hen Poo; 🏁 Jim Clark Motorsport Museum ★★★
⬤ Moderate | Clear paths and tracks, narrow in places. Tracks were muddy on our visit due to forestry operations.
Download file for GPS➡️ Anticlockwise circuit: start – Duns – Duns Law – Hen Poo – lochan to north – Castle Wood – Duns Wood – Duns Castle (view from west) – A6105 – Jim Clark Motorsport Museum – start. Northwest part of this route blocked by fallen trees – can be avoided by following track west (instead of north) from north end of Hen Poo, rejoining route in Duns Wood
🥾 On our last visit
Wildlife: Cows and calves, swans and cygnets, pair of buzzards.
Weather: Extensive sunshine, light winds and comfortable temperatures, a few clouds here and there.
September 2019
