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In 1910 George Reith commented wryly of the view from here, ‘We try not to see the ugly chimneys and black smoke of the shale districts; we try also not to smell the latter: unsuccessfully, if the wind be in the north west.’ Things have definitely improved since his time – the views on a clear day are good.

4 Keep on the path to walk over Harbour Hill and descend to the good track at the bottom (NT213643), and turn right. Maiden’s Cleuch is the valley between Harbour Hill and Bell’s Hill. It crosses the col with a stone stile and a gate close to its crest. Down to the left is Glencorse Reservoir, and to the right, Harlaw and the north side of the hills. (It is possible to lengthen this route by walking north to Harlaw and completing a circuit of the reservoir (see Route 6).)

Maiden’s Cleugh – close up of stone stile

Maiden’s Cleuch is, according to S Harris (see bibliography), a 20th-century misnomer of what early maps, eg Roy 1753, call ‘Clochmead’ or ‘Clochmaid Gate’. The name appears to refer to the gate or track itself, rather than the col it crosses, which is hardly a cleuch or ravine, like Green Cleuch or Dens Cleuch. It is likely a corruption of the Celtic cloch or clach, meaning ‘a stone’. The stone is the huge boulder that forms the boundary and stile at the summit. But the name could also be Gaelic: cloch meid, ‘the stone at the middle of the pass’.