Читать книгу The Book of the Bothy онлайн

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However, edged between the speeding cars of the M74 and the Dalveen pass is the mass of undulating humps known as the Lowther Hills, pushing up the moorland like a crumpled blanket. They are not high. But what they lack in pointy summits they make up for in their crowd-free potential.

It wasn’t always the case of course. Romans once paced through the landscape in their efforts to seize Scotland; a battle they would never win. Among the marks left on the scenery, amid the velvet-like collection of knolls and hillocks, are signs of much more recent residents – farm buildings, dry-stone walls and...this little bothy. Once part of a series of three little huts, only this sturdy structure remains. The concrete foundation of one of the former buildings sits to its right, then merely the depression of the other to the left.

Recording a stay in Kettleton Byre in the bothy book

Surrounded by the empty Lowther Hills, Kettleton Byre offers a doorstep from which to enter into a proper exploration of a small but wild place. Don’t expect to see many wild animals – they seem to be tightly controlled with traps by the locals who want to protect the prize grouse that people pay to come and shoot – but do come ready to be the only human soul up in these southern highlands, where paths are few and views are boundless.