UPLAND

UPLAND is an exhibition that charts the everchanging
upland landscapes in the Scottish
Borders and takes stock of where we have come
from and where we are going.
This is a crucial point in time in which to
investigate changing land use. Many of the
landscapes which we know today, or were
familiar to our parents or grandparents, will never
be seen by future generations. Renewables,
forestry, the implications of Brexit, and re-wilding
initiatives will change many parts of the
landscape beyond recognition and important
parts of the culture of the borders will disappear
with the arrival of these changes.
On the other hand, there are many opportunities
for farmers and communities in the uplands of
Scotland to take advantage of these forthcoming
changes. For instance, upland farms have new
opportunities to generate income from
investments in biodiversity and carbon capture.
Economic factors are the major drivers in
changes in land use, as old methods become
unprofitable and new opportunities for income
are found. However, we should be careful when
pursuing change. Rewilding or forestry for carbon
capture can have inadvertent consequences,
such as reducing habitats for ground nesting
birds and flowers, which require the grazed
habitats created by sheep and cattle. A balance
must be found between the future and the past.
Charles Fletcher is an
artist and academic
researcher with a
background in law
and history. He
currently lives and
work in the Scottish
Borders.
Charles Fletcher
would like to thank
everyone who
assisted with
UPLAND.
Supported by Creative
Scotland.
Published on the
occasion of UPLAND,
at Tweeddale Gallery,
Peebles, 24
September 2022 – 11
February 2023.
All rights reserved.
© Charles Fletcher
2022.
www.charlesfletcher.
co.uk
Charles Fletcher, August 2022.

Rotten Bottom
2017 feet
In 1990 a broken yew bow, dating from circa 2500 BCE, was
recovered from a peat hag at Rotten Bottom. Rotten Bottom is
now part of the Carrifran Wildwood re-wilding scheme which aims
to restore Carrifran to ecological health and its ancient state.
The huntsman had followed the hart over hills, which are now
known by different names, such is the time that has passed. He
had been in pursuit since first light and had passed far from his
own bounds. Ordinarily, he would have ended the chase long ago
and returned home, but something compelled him to continue.
The reason? This hart was of the purest white. Exhausted, the
huntsman paused beneath an elm tree. All around him the land
was falling into darkness; all except for the white hart, which
skirted the edge of the forest and began to head for the more open
ground upon the hill tops. The darkness would soon be total. This
caused the huntsman to curse aloud; his chase was at an end. It
was unsafe to pursue by night, he would have to shakedown
where he stood and return home at first light. This he did;
however, he did not forget the white hart, nor the place where he
had last seen it near Rotten Bottom.
The winter was harsh. Small birds fell dead from the sky. Foxes
found safe spaces in banks between tree roots and there they
died too. The huntsman and his people lit pyres which crackled
and spat sparks at the frost. They called upon the sun to return
and bring warmth and light to their land, but the one true sun was
not tempted by these false suns and winter’s grip tightened upon
the jugular of life. The tribe’s leader called a meeting of the
headmen of his and the surrounding villages. He demanded that
his followers gather for a tinchel: a great hunt was the only way to
save them all from hunger and want.

The next day the men of the tinchel gathered up, orders were
given, and they then dispersed each which way to form the human
noose which would ensnare the beasts of the hill and forest. The
huntsman travelled in the company of the leader and the
headsmen to the place that we now call Rotten Bottom. This was
the place appointed to all the men and boys of the tinchel to travel
to, after the space of two sun rises, driving the beasts before them
into the path of the waiting huntsmen, who with bows and spears
would make great slaughter. The hour approached and the
tinchel-men arrived with a great number of deer. Towards the row
of huntsmen, the deer flew, but seeing their path of escape
blocked they reared and tried to turn; they were trapped and there
they were killed.
The huntsman had made merry in the slaughter. He thought his
work done and wiped blood from his blade when something
caught his eye – movement against the blood-stained snow.
Camouflaged by its coat, the white hart had so far survived where
its fellows had perished. The huntsman caught his breath, drew an
arrow from his quiver and readied himself to fire, when he felt a
hand upon his arm. Annoyed beyond measure, he turned, ready to
yell at the person who held him, only to realise that the hand
belonged to a woman. The woman was Eastre, goddess of spring.
Eastre looked at the huntsman and said, ‘if you kill this beast then
all your stock and family shall perish, the trees will be torn from
their roots by giants until none remain and then all the beasts of
the forest, both small and large, will quit this place. Your yew bow,
which has never failed you yet, will be rendered useless and cast
into the earth. This curse shall only be lifted when your bow
springs up from the bog of its own accord.’
The huntsman killed the white hart and Eastre’s prophesy came
true. 4000 years later the bow sprung from the bog at Rotten
Bottom and the curse was lifted. The wildwood began to regrow

and the beasts of the forest, both little and small, will follow, given
time.
Black Hag
1801 feet
Hag, n. A notch, a cutting stroke, a break in the hills or a glimpse
into the dark of a peat bog.
Associated artwork – Stob Rig-Davie Rig/Hope Hills, oil on canvas
120 x 100cm.
First come the hills themselves. They encircle the east-march and
encroach from the west into the middle: Lammermuirs and
Moorfoots to the north, Cheviots to the south and the hills of
Tweeddale, Manor and Ettrick to the west. Each grouping has its
own subtle character. The Lammermuirs have a flat plateau which
drops into hidden glens. Contrast these with the steeply shelving
hills of Tweeddale which reek of sheep, drizzle, and scree; the
Cheviots meanwhile, are all grass and softness, these are hills to
tempt the Merse-folk up from their fields and farms. The highest of
the Scottish border hills is Broad Law, in the Manor Hills, it tops
out at 2760 feet.
The uplands have a language of their own. To understand them it
is necessary to know their language.
Height, n. Pre-eminent, lofty, big, and bad.
Law, n. A shapely hill, often round and always an individualist.
Knowe, n. An everyday-hill.
Rig, n. People were here but are no longer.

Side, adj. Long, hanging low, from the top down we go.
Shaw, n. Goes hand in hand with ancient trees.
Hope, n. Like a coffin, I am small and enclosed.
Cleuch or cleugh, n. A chasm sculpted from rock by water.
Stell, n. Fold, the roundest circle.
Fold, n. Fank, a sheep noose.
Sike, n. A ditch, a stream, a barrier.
Burn, n. Stream, may be warm, usually, cold.

Brotherstone Hill
807 feet
Associated artwork- Brotherstones, video, 8 mins
The Brotherstones are a pair of Megaliths (8 feet and 4 feet high
respectively) that stand on the hill of the same name, between
Redpath and Smailholm. They mark the border between the
counties of Berwick and Roxburgh. It is estimated that they have
stood there for around 4000 years. The story repeated here is not
the often-told tale of the Brotherstones but one which draws upon
the wider traditions attached to the many pre-historic monuments
in the Border-uplands. This tale reflects upon the passage of time.
Some elements of our history are enduring and static whilst others
are fleeting or in constant flux. Of the land, Brotherstones asks this
question: is it wise to resist change?
Once they had been giants. They had laughed like giants and
danced as giants, these two brothers, and she had loved him, the
elder of the two. They held all within their power. They took what
they pleased because they believed it theirs by right. Yet, with
time they grew careless, and the people grew restive. One day the
two brothers were seized, weighed down by plunder, when
returning from one of their sorties, they were dragged to the
nearest hilltop, tried, and condemned. The sun rose and they were
turned to stone. She had been with them and was complicit, but
being an ordinary woman, she was spared their fate, instead, she
was doomed to travel for the distance of forever. Upon hearing her
sentence, she turned and confronted her doomster: ‘must I travel
fathomless distance forever and ever?’
‘Forever, if it must be; be, and be still; endure.’

*
*At this point he had expected her to roll her eyes and laugh but
instead she had asked him to continue: ‘And then, what happened
to her, to them?’ she asked expectantly.
‘Well, of her nothing more is known, she suffered her banishment
and left this place. The two brothers are still here though, since
that day they have stood as stone on the hilltop except for one day
each year when all the stones in this part are allowed to move. On
that day it is said they travel down to the pools at the foot of the
hill and dip their heads to drink and slake their burning thirst. No
one sees them, of course’ he added with a smile.
She had not been living in the village for long, she had arrived
suddenly when the gardener had quit and left his cottage vacant.
No one knew her, so she couldn’t be local, yet there was
something familiar about her mannerisms and way she spoke:
‘Why not?’ she asked.
‘None can be permitted to see the stones move, to do so is very
dangerous. Many men’s lives are held in place by a stone. With
time these stones may crumble to dust or are taken in their turn to
form gate post or lintel; however, as in life, the brothers are not to
be crossed lightly in death. That is why the brothers remain
untouched when so many other stones have been ploughed or
smashed: not because they cannot not be moved, but for fear of
what might stir.’
‘What day is it that the stones move?’ she asked him
‘It is Whitsun of course’ he said, ‘the day of the flitting.’
When she declared her intention to go to the brothers upon
Whitsunday, he laughed and called it stuff and nonsense, legend,

and lore but grew uneasy when it became clear that she was
determined and would not be moved.
On Whitsunday she rose before dawn and walked by way of the
fields which lay between her home and the hilltop. At first, she lay
in the grass below the hilltop and watched the stones from a safe
distance. Hours passed. She grew bored, got to her feet, and
approached the larger stone. It weighed, they said, as much as ten
men. Circling it, she admired its massive bulk, placed caring
hands upon it and then began to push in the hope of making it stir.
Growing tired of this also, she took a rope from her bag, tied it
securely about the rock and began to pull. She shifted her weight
and heaved. The rope cut into her hands and her feet tore
helplessly at the grass, but the stone was immoveable,
intractable. It could not be cajoled.
By this point she had been there many hours and felt herself about
to drop from fatigue. She craved rest but fretted once more of
missing the moment when the stones eventually moved. She
began to despair of ever seeing them. It was then that she had an
idea. If the stones would not move for her then she must wait, that
much was clear, but doing so in her tired state, she risked falling
asleep and missing them. But if she tied herself to one of the
stones, it could not possibly move without her knowing.
She untied the rope, looped, and retied it, along with herself, to
the stone. Then she waited, as she had become accustomed to
during a hundred lifetimes of endurance, she waited for the
brothers to stir. How long she had waited for this moment she
knew not, as she had been travelling for longer than time itself.
Once more the cold realisation gripped her that the only certainty
in her life was that her own fate would be revealed only in the
distance forever. With something akin to panic, the thought
assailed her repeatedly, whilst, without haste, the day slipped
from late towards early. ‘Release me’ she pleaded.

The next morning her neighbour, having seen no sign of her since
the day-before-last, visited the Brotherstones.
The two stones stood aloft, watching each other and out,
anchored to the oldest of pasts. And that is where I found her,
crushed, and broken, beneath the tallest stone.

Hownam Rings
1043 feet.
Associated artwork – Hownam, oil on canvas 70 x 100 cm.
Over time the Borders have been turned upside down. The first
permanent inhabitants of this land sought out the upland hilltops
as their homes. These places offered protection and land which
was drier and freer of vegetation than wooded valley floors below.
From c. 2000 BCE to 1250 BCE cereal crops were grown to
altitudes exceeding 1500 feet. After this time, the hilltops were
favoured for grazing, initially for cattle and then increasingly for
sheep. However, the hilltops were not totally abandoned for
arable production, with arable creeping up and down the hillsides,
until the sweeping changes of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Indeed, for over 1000 years there was little outward
change in farming practices in the Border uplands, with medieval
farming practice differing little in essence from the system
established in the late Iron Age. Improvement during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries almost wiped this system
from the face of the earth. However, some remnants are to be
seen in the broad and cord rigs, and cultivation terraces which
cast shadows upon the hillsides in the evening and morning. At
places such as Hownam Rings, there are stones too, some
standing, and others in the turf covered ramparts of forts and
stock pens.
Much of the upland Borders are relatively depopulated, another
legacy of improvement and the drive to develop more effective
sheep farms from the seventeenth century onwards. Consider the
following:

‘Several of the farms in in the higher part of this parish have
scarcely been ploughed in the memory of man…The great
decrease of inhabitants, within the last 40 years, is evidently
occasioned by the too general practice of letting the lands in great
farms’ 1791, OSA, Parish of Hownam.
‘The population of this parish has decreased considerably. About
70 years ago, the lands were occupied by 26 tenants, but the
farms since that period have been gradually enlarged in extent,
and of course diminished in number; even of the 15 to which they
are now reduced, so many are engrossed in the hands of the same
persons, and those often settled in other parishes, that there are
now only 3 farmers at present resident in the whole parish’. 1793,
OSA, Parish of Tweedsmuir.
‘This parish produces no remarkable species of animal, except
sheep, which are allowed by all to be delicious food and to thrive
well…The number of sheep is about 30,000…The present number
of inhabitants, however, amounts to 470.’ 1792, OSA, Parish of
Ettrick.
‘There are no new houses built in the parish of late, nor cottages,
but a great many cottages pulled down…The throwing down of
cottages must be one of the principal reasons of the decrease of
population.’ 1793, OSA, Parish of Broughton
‘Evidence from the Lammermuirs suggests that 48 settlements
were abandoned between 1600 and 1750. Over the following halfcentury,
the figure was 21 and between 1800 and 1825 the rate
increased to 54 over that twenty-year period.’ T Devine, The
Scottish Clearances, p. 93.

Wedder Lairs
1593 feet
‘In ane cleuch-syde…his sheip war lying in thair lairis’
The most obvious symbol of the dominance of sheep farming in
the Borders, besides the sheep themselves, are the ubiquitous
fanks, folds, buchts, and stells that encircle and enclose many
acres of the uplands. Increasingly, many areas of poor sheepground
have given way to trees, but the folds remain, finding
themselves encircled by a wall, not of stone but of firs.
Fank. From the Irish
Fang, noun: booty, plunder,
Anything captured and
Often that was sheep.
Hence, Fank. A sheepfold.
A walled or fenced
Pen for sheep.
Shaped like a coil of
rope.
A sheep noose.
Originally Highland
But now often
Out of use.

Fank
Outflanked
Fauld
Enfolded.
Bucht
Not forgotten
The stells -
Still there.
Stell. The roundest circle
Especially Borders, origin
old Northumbrian which is
after all, close by. Shepherds,
both English and Scots, stelled their sheep.
However, unlike the fank, the heft
May come and go
With the stormy weather.
[Apparently, there are over 300 sheep folds in the Lammermuirs.]

Hundleshope Heights
2250 feet
‘I am happy to hear that our friend Mungo holds out so well, I have
heard of his purchase but not from himself, I was never but once
in that part of the country he has made a choice of it may do pretty
well in summer, but I fancy it will be very bleak in winter, it will
employ him and direct him, and it is within a convenient distance
of Edinburgh…’ Ninian Home to Alexander Douglas, December
1787.
Border hills sometimes turn up connections with distant places.
One such place is upon the Hundleshope estate near Peebles.
This farm, this land, this hill, once belonged to Mungo Campbell.
They were purchased with the proceeds of chattel slavery. The
freedom of these hillsides was paid for by hundreds of enslaved
people labouring on his sugar plantations of Carriere and Maran in
Grenada. To depress you even further, the Campbell family
subsequently also purchased the neighbouring estate of Kailzie.

Men such as Mungo Campbell regarded themselves, above all, as
gentleman farmers who earned a living directly from the
cultivation of the soil, in both Scotland and the West Indies. They
claimed to understand the weather, soil, and seasons. They knew
all about the latest methods for increasing their yields of oats,
barley, and sugar. They were of a breed and generation of men
who believed, correctly, that the world could be moulded in their
own image; rivers straightened, moorlands turned into fields, and
islands into sugar plantations. The landscapes they helped to
design are the ones we often live with today. Mungo must have felt
something of the beauty of the hills to purchase such a place.
Therein lies a connection that we can understand, as we look for
meaning in the actions of those who preceded us.
Ettrickshaws Farm
900 feet
Associated artwork – The Judge, The Artist and The Photographer,
video and audio, 7 mins.
It is early-July, and the day is set fair. Sixty degrees and we
may yet see the sun; in Selkirkshire this passes for the height
of summer. Seven men work efficiently at the business of
clipping the farm’s cheviot sheep. Another, stripped back to
his shirt sleeves in the sultry heat, minds the rest of the flock
penned in the fanks. Dogs flop on the grass, pink tongues
lolling as they watch the women folk prepare the lunchtimepiece,
ready to nip the heels of any stranger who might
appear. In the distance the round backs of the border hills
disappear into the haze. A plantation of conifers bristles on
the shoulder of the distant brae.

This is a scene which captured Joan Eardley’s imagination but is
one which is now much less common in many parts of the
Scottish Borders. Hill farms, such as Ettrickshaws location for
Joan’s painting The Clipping, have changed greatly over the years
since that July day in 1955. Bunnets, trusty shears, and turned
back shirt sleeves: as with Joan’s Townhead paintings, and the
nets drying at Catterline bay, The Clipping is a window onto a lost
way of life. This past is still familiar in the borders but has been
shaped, as with all things, by the passage of time. Who were the
people captured in Joan’s 1955 painting? This question haunts me
when I look at the loose figures in The Clipping. What was their
world like? What did they make of the artist, the photographer,
and the judge staying in their midst? I pondered these questions
once more as I paused, halfway up the hill from the bridge over
the Ettrick Water, on my way to Ettrickshaws farm in Selkirkshire.
It is a steep haul up through the forest, rising from the valley floor,
to get to Ettrickshaws farm, or ‘The Shaws’ as it is known locally.
Cresting the brae, the Ettrick Water fell away to my rear, and the
hollow holding Ettrickshaws opened out before me. The farm here
is counted as a large one, extending to nearly 2000 acres of grass
and hill. The hub of Ettrickshaws is the ferm-toun. It is also large;
alongside the farmhouse are serried ranks of cottages abutting the
barns and byres. At the ferm-toun’s foot sits a redundant mill
pond.
Joan visited Ettrickshaws several times in the mid ‘50s in the
company of Audrey Walker, her inseparable companion, and
Audrey’s husband Allan. The Walkers had a retreat at Caverslea
cottage, a former herd’s house, in the fields a mile above the farm.
A talented violinist, Audrey subsequently won renown as a
photographer, whilst Allan served variously as sheriffs of
Selkirkshire, Peeblesshire, and Dunbartonshire, before going on to
become sheriff-principal of Lanarkshire. When Joan visited
Caverslea with the Walkers in the ‘50s, she found herself among a

community in the hills. At that time there were three shepherds at
Ettrickshaws: James Wilson, Sandy Moffat (who lived a way out
from the main farm at Gildie’s Green by the lochs) and Sim
Davidson. There was also a cattleman named Chuck Bell and Jock
Davidson who was the farm manager. Five households. Twentyfive
residents. Now, there is one shepherd who does everything.
The blackened kettle, swinging on its swee, whistles and tea
is prepared at Caverslea. The judge, the photographer, and
the artist take breakfast in front of the open fire. From the
windows they can see the border hills rising to the west, ridge
upon ridge, above Yarrow, Ettrick, and Tweed. Following
breakfast on that July morning, the visitors wander down to
the sheep fanks to watch the clipping and volunteer to lend a
hand. A young dog barks above the noise of the sheep and is
shouted down by one of the shepherds. Audrey sets up the
camera that she has been carrying in her bag. She captures
the men getting to grip with the sheep amidst the maze-like
complex of fences and gates, one eye always on Joan. Fleeces
are strewn over the grass in front of the pens, all of which
need rolling and twisting, a job suitable for women, children,
and willing holiday makers.
‘The Walkers were very nice folk; in fact, they were lovely folk. We
were quite friendly with both of them. Joan would speak to you
and ask after the children, but she was more reserved’ recalls 92-
year-old Annie Davidson. Annie lived at Ettrickshaws with her
husband, Jock, for twenty years, until the farm was sold in 1969.
‘Sir Allan used to come and help with the clipping and the dipping;
I don’t know how good he was’ she confides with a knowing smile,
‘but he would always lend a hand. Haymaking too, he used to do
these kinds of things.’ Joan meanwhile retreated to paint.
It takes me little time to find the sheep fank where Joan captured
that scene of the sheep clipping so evocatively.

It was fresh when the men of Shaws, with the help of the
herds from neighbouring Hyndhope, made an early start on
the sheep. As the day grew hot, and the sweat pricked their
backs and brows, the shepherds themselves symbolically
shod their coats. Joan notices their jackets hanging from nails
and fence posts.
‘I can remember Joan stood at the front door of the house that we
stayed in at the farm and I watched her painting’ says Annie. ‘I
didn’t like to be nosy; she stood the whole day painting. It was a
beautiful day. Nice and warm.’ Amongst the men of Shaws
captured by Joan clipping that day (clipping was a man’s job in
those days) were Sim and Jock Davidson. Sim: cream shirt, black
overalls. Jock: blue brush stroke, crouching, sleeves rolled to the
elbow. Possibly. Regardless, they were present that day and were
amongst the men immortalised in The Clipping and photographs
taken by Audrey Walker. Sim and Jock were brothers. Sim was a
shepherd and Jock the newly appointed farm manager. The former
was never seen without a sprig of lucky heather tucked under the
brim of this bonnet, whilst the other was an idiosyncratic car
driver, dry-stane dyker, and popular accordion player, despite
child-hood polio leaving him with one functioning arm. The hill
farming life bred men and women of resilience, humour, and
superstition; the characteristics necessary to make a life in the
relative isolation of the Selkirkshire hills. Jock’s widow Annie too,
as sharp as an easter lambing wind, is an individualist from pure
border stock. The son of a shepherd and a shepherd’s wife, she
did not bat an eyelid at the oddities of the visitors at Caverslea.
Afterall, Annie’s too was an unconventional life of a different sort;
raised near Grey Mair’s Tail, she left school at fifteen but must
have been quite good as they wanted her to stay. To no avail.
Once she had tasted freedom, she will tell you (with a youthful
glint in her eye), she could never go back. It was life in the hills for
her.

In this part of the Scottish Borders the rolling landscape of the
Eastern Marches gives way suddenly to the uplands and thus,
here, it is all about the hills. They rise inexorably to the summit of
Ettrick Pen, to the Southwest, at nearly 2,500 feet above the sea.
Shaws has its own collection of hills, and it is the flat top of
Easterhill Head that provides the backdrop to the bustle of the
fanks. The height of the ground here means it is ill-suited to the
rearing of crops. The climate can be bitterly cold and cruel to the
farmer. In the ‘50s the farm was dedicated to hundreds of Cheviot
sheep, and a small herd of cattle. The farm made use of all the
ground at its disposal, from the hay meadows at its foot, to the
heather moorland and rough grazing on the hill tops. The
excellence of this land for sheep husbandry has long been
recognised; the area has a rich history of sheep farming. From the
large flocks run by the monastic houses of the border abbeys in
the twelfth century, to the commercial farms established in the
eighteenth century, all in this part of the borders has been tailored
to the economy of the sheep. It is no exaggeration to say that
these beasts have shaped the landscape and the society that
calls it home. The commercial sheep farms which arrived in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries forced much of the border
population from the land. However, these farms also created their
own distinctive communities of herds, oot-bye herds, farmers,
and their families, who were hefted to the landscape as much as
the flocks that they tended. This system, which still prevailed in
the ‘50s, has itself gradually been supplanted by mechanisation,
conifers, and a search for an easier life.
The shepherd’s year was cyclical. Clipping in July signalled the
end of the busy period in the sheep farming calendar stretching
from lambing in the spring. Hay making also took place around
this time. With friends, family, and neighbours, the people could
look back in satisfaction on the first half of the year and forward to
what was to come. Idy Davidson, who spent her childhood at

Ettickshaws, recalls: ‘the neighbouring farm Hyndhope was where
the shepherds came and helped with the clipping and vice versa
for the Shaws men. All the kids got involved with this also, whether
it was wrapping fleeces or the bisting [marking] of the sheep after
they were clipped. My Uncle Jock always had a supply of beer for
the men and small juice bottles for the kids, so it was always a
great adventure for us all.’ On the June day of my visit to the farm,
one of the fanks is packed with blackface sheep but not a soul is
in sight. Now, on the remaining hill farms, the clippers are usually
contractors paid by the fleece. In and out in the click of a finger;
they can do several farms in a day during their summer tour of the
country. Beer afterwards? Possibly. Visitors, neighbours, and the
whole community lending a hand, no more.
The west wind carries the sound of a distant quad bike engine to
me, along with the barking of dogs, but when I look back once
more at the copy of Joan’s painting which I have with me, it is the
midday break at the fank:
men puffing on a well-earned pipe, savouring a cold bottle of
beer, before someone speaks up: “we’d better get on or the
day will go by if not; we’re here to work!” Ever mindful of the
task in hand and it’s back to it.
For me likewise. So, it is on towards the isolated cottage of
Caverslea. The house sits higher up the hillside, above the Bailie
Burn. Caverslea is enveloped by a plantation. This was once the
little larchwood, which formed the basis for another one of Joan’s
paintings completed whilst staying with the Walkers. As I crossed
the field towards the house, a pair of buzzards climbed into the
sky and spent the whole duration of my visit protesting loudly. The
cottage is now closed-up, and in an advanced state of decay. One
of the dormers droops like a weary eyelid above the grizzled
pebble dash. Here the Walkers lived out a basic existence. ‘The
Walkers, well, they were very’ Annie pauses, searching for the

right word, ‘original’ she decides. ‘They had their own special way
of life there: no carpets, rugs, or anything; an open fire with a
swee, the kettle hung on the swee and a wood fire underneath.
There was no electricity and no running water. It was very, very
primitive. Sir Allan made a nice wee garden there, they liked to get
away from their other life at Caverslea.’ As with the farming
community at Ettrickshaws, the Walkers and Joan recognised that
there was satisfaction to be found in simple acts. Walking the
hills, helping with the hay making, and even gathering wood-fall
from beneath the little larches were sources of contentment; a
balm to soothe the soul. No doubt this engendered them to the
hill-community who felt able to accept Sir Allan and Lady Walker,
as they became, on equal terms. Not that life on the farm was
easy. Wintertime heralded cold toil. Springtime was always at
arm’s length. When it arrived, there were long hours of lambing
and the risk of dying ewes. Even summer, when the bitter winter
days seemed far off, came accompanied with its own troubles: in
drought, the springs dried up and in deluge, rains flattened the
meadows. These things hassled you but were of a different order
to the stresses of modern life.
The Walkers were the final people to make use of the house at
Caverslea. Before them an elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Melville,
stayed there. He was a cattleman who used to walk the mile
across the fields to his work at the farm in the morning. The
Walkers did the same when they were there. If they were lucky
there was the chance of a lift on the tractor to and from the farm.
How did the Sir Allan and his wife come to spend so much time in
this place? Annie takes a moment to look from her window at the
outside world and towards the hills of Yarrow and Ettrick. ‘I think
how they came to be involved with Caverslea was this: the farm
belonged to a Mr Ogilvie. His mother was a Scott-Anderson who
owned the Shaws hotel. Allan was sheriff of Selkirk at that point
and Mr Ogilvie was friendly with him. Audrey was very nice; I found

she was easy to talk to at that point. When my mother died
suddenly, she was one the one I felt able to talk to. She was very,
very kind. We kept in touch and even went to Sir Allan’s funeral.’
The families from Ettrickshaws remain grateful for Audrey’s
friendship and her skill with a camera. Their way of life has been
brilliantly captured by her in a series of photographs which add
extra depth to Joan’s painting.
The Walkers visited Caverslea every few weeks, often
accompanied by Joan. Whilst Joan reputedly found little at
Caverslea to fuel her creativity, the Walkers clearly relished their
second life. Sadly, they would hardly recognise the house, garden,
and even the hills at Caverslea today. At three points of the
compass are vast spruce plantations, whilst to the East the trees
are gone, only to be replaced by a new windfarm. Thus, it is
reassuring to find that the farm itself goes on as ever, with
blackface sheep and cattle grazing the hillsides even though the
farm is now hemmed in by modern rural industries.
The number of sheep in the fank still to be clipped begins to
dwindle. The men redouble their efforts with the end in sight.
Joan has spent the entire day learning the motions of the
clipping. Rehearsing the next movement that Jock will make,
she waits for him to turn the yowe onto its back and begin
clipping the soft, dirty wool of the belly, before beginning to
paint once more.
This will be the final gestural mark, because the story of the
clipping was that, on such a grand day, the men got finished
quicker than normal. In doing so, they prevented Joan from
completing the painting. It normally took three long days to cover
the whole flock at Ettrickshaws, with clipping stretching well into
the evening to take advantage of the fine weather. On clipping
days, the men engaged in a race against the oncoming night and
the vagaries of border weather fronts. For Joan, there was a

personal race to finish her painting before the clipping itself was
over for another year. There would not be a second chance.
What did Annie and the others at Ettrickshaws make of the painter
in their midst? ‘We never really thought it was strange, having a
painter there. The truth is we never really paid her much attention;
there I was, a mother of two, and with the men to look after as
well! Joan would have been from fifteen to twenty yards away the
whole day, but I wish now I had paid more attention; we had no
idea what she would become.’

Four Stells
A fine winter walk.
This walking route is based in Glentress Forest. The route
encompasses four sheep stells in the forest. Each stell is
identified by a what3words coordinate. The sheep stell is a type of
sheep fold, usually circular and built of drystone, which are
common across the Borders; however, they are increasingly
falling out of use due to changing land use practices. If visited in
order, the stells will provide the basis for a circular walk of six
miles in an anti-clockwise direction.
1. Witless.shadowed.enveloped Stell 1 (NT 274 434) is
situated in a site of clear fell below a modern forestry track. It
is in poor repair.
2. Pylons.shampoo.crucially Stell 2 (NT 266 446) is situated in
a clearing in dense conifer plantation beside an overgrown
track. It is in good repair.
3. Shadows.drop.variously Stell 3 (NT 266 440) is situated in a
clearing beside the junction of Crookshope and Soonhope
Burn near the site of Heathpool Common. It is in good repair.
4. Pebble.hurricane.offhand The final Stell no longer exists. It
was situated at NT 268 436.

Fallago Rig
1600 feet
Associated artwork – Sound Farm, video/audio, 7 minutes.
Fallago Rig Wind Farm in the Lammermuir hills has 48 turbines
and is owned by EDF Energy Renewables. Construction work was
completed in July 2013; it has a projected lifespan of 25 years. The
community fund associated with Fallago Rig has donated over
£1.4 million to projects across the Scottish Borders, many of
these projects could not have taken place without this funding. It
is also an important source of renewable power. However, the
Fallago Rig Wind Farm has destroyed the centre of the
Lammermuir hills, an important landscape area.
There are around 500 wind turbines (over 15m high from blade tip
to ground) in the Scottish Borders. A 2012 telephone survey
undertaken by Scottish Borders Council found that 48% of
respondents agreed that there should be more wind turbines in
the Scottish Borders, whilst 53% agreed that wind developments
benefitted communities in the Scottish Borders. Thus, public
opinion is split down the middle when it comes to wind turbines.
In 2022 a proposal was submitted for a 62-turbine wind farm, five
miles south of Hawick. The uplands only look the way they do
because of people. Is there any difference between a turbine and
a megalith? What do you want the land to look like? Where should
our power come from? Are the compromises we are making
acceptable?

Crook Inn
750 feet
Associated artwork – Mural @ The Crook by the people of
Tweedsmuir.
Tweedsmuir is very much a modern community, but one
connected with its heritage. Does it offer a blueprint for the future
of other upland communities?
The community is small but autonomous, they do everything off
their own backs. Their achievements go to show what a motivated
community can do with direction, and a little financial assistance
(much of it from community wind farm grants). The community’s
activities focus upon the resurrection of the Crook Inn which
closed in 2006. After a long campaign, they raised the funds to
purchase the inn in 2013 and the rest of the site in 2016. The first
major milestone was reached in 2022, when they opened a
café/venue next to the inn called the Wee Crook. The restoration
of the main building at the Crook will take some time but the aim
is to create a lasting legacy, providing employment for local
people and a focal point for the scattered community; the people
of Tweedsmuir are in it for the long haul. In the meantime, they
have also created an eco-museum, little library, heritage walks,
and have a brilliant community space at their village hall, not to
mention the various events and get-togethers that are on
throughout the year. These are things that people have said to me
about Tweedsmuir:
‘Tweedsmuir only existed because it was a good distance from
where you were going and where you wanted to go to – and the
Crook was the middle point.’

‘Without the Crook, Tweedsmuir wouldn’t have been
Tweedsmuir…it’s been closed since 2006 and since it’s been
closed there’s been a real space.’
‘But for those who have come to Tweedsmuir since it closed there
has still been a community and only later has its focus become
renewing the Crook.’
‘It galvanised the people – the Crook closing.’
‘If there’s one thing, we could tell the world about Tweedsmuir it
would be that sense of community, getting together around a
bonfire for a drink.’
‘When we moved here a long time ago, we thought “this is
different – a sense of community” and that is what defined it, a
sense of community. There are prettier places in Scotland…’
‘There are drier places in Scotland.’
‘There’s a reason they built the reservoirs here!’
‘But the reason that I wanted to live here and bring up my family
here is that I got to know people and made friends and the Crook
was part of that. It’s been harder to meet people without the
Crook.’
‘But focussing on the Crook negates all the other things that we
have done. Tweedsmuir is more than just the Crook now.’
‘The community is here, it was always here, but it will just make
the community stronger.’
‘The thing here is about the events, it gets everyone together,
having a chat and a sing, and with the Crook we’ll just be even
closer together.’

‘It’s an all-age thing as well, which isn’t what happens in towns
and cities but to us its normal.’
‘It’s not obvious when you drive through, apart from the sign, that
Tweedsmuir is a thing, but there’s a community and there’s things
happening.’
‘Fire is an important symbol – bonfires, we all love bonfires, or it
could be the welcoming fire in the bar or sitting around the
campfire. The fire, with all ages gathering.’
‘There’s 20 under-18s in Tweedsmuir. It’s a big challenge how
we’re not going to just become an ageing community. We’ve lost
all our young families.’
‘We haven’t lost them, we haven’t left. We’ve just got older! It’s
our fault, we don’t want to leave!’

Friar’s Croft
850 feet
Associated artwork – sound installation in Yair Forest.
Ever since the competition for land between agriculture and
woodland emerged 4 millennia ago, these two land uses have vied
for space in the Borders. Admittedly, this was something of a onesided
competition, what with trees being no match for the
subsistence farmers with their hatchets, saws, and fire. The nadir
for tree cover in the Borders, and Scotland as a whole, was
reached in the early eighteenth century. From this point onwards,
the ecological, economic, and aesthetic importance of woodlands
has been recognised and accommodated for. This has been
particularly true since the creation of the Forestry Commission
after the First World War, when poor or uneconomical land was
increasingly planted with trees. Initially, commercial forestry of
the kind which prevails in the Borders, was planted primarily for
economic rather than any other considerations. Something which
has only lately begun to change.
Over the past century increasing amounts of upland farmland
have been given over to forestry but the latter never promised to
eradicate the former. Now, the contest between woodlands and
agriculture has often come to be characterised as ‘either-or’. The
sheep farming favoured in the Border uplands has many
detractors. These detractors decry the damage done by sheep to
upland biodiversity. It is indisputable that these detractors have a
point. Given the economic difficulties facing upland farms, they
also make a strong economic case for pursuing a transition from
sheep walks to woodland. On the other side of the fence, the
sheep’s champions will point out the advantages that controlled
grazing and management can bring to upland habitats. However,

the main argument in favour of continued agricultural land use in
the Border uplands are not environmental.
Given the heritage and traditions attached to hill farming, it would
be unthinkable for farming in the hills and uplands to end. When
we consider how rural and remote communities rely socially and
economically upon farming activity, we are looking at nothing less
than a total break with the past in the uplands.
Trees and sheep.
We need both.
Not one or the other.

Upland is a project that
charts the ever-changing
upland landscapes in the
Scottish Borders and takes
stock of where we have
come from and where we
are going.