athomson

Last updated 01:00, Thursday, 04 October 2007

JUST as we have numerous small hills throughout our dales, we often feel that these same hills are adorned with small quarries.

There are quarries all over Whita and on Clark Fell and Meikleholm. There are quarries at Eskdalemuir, Castle O’er, Greena and Carby or Caer Ba which means The Fort of the Cattle.

But there is a wee quarry which countless folk have passed regularly and never even noticed where it snuggles into the end of the Craig Hill.

The wee hole lies immediately opposite Craigcleuch, only a couple of hundred feet above the road. Over the passing years the wee dug-out has become a natural part of the landscape, lending interest to an otherwise featureless hillside.

But once upon a time there had been a road from Craigcleuch to the quarry. Never much of a road it is now unrecognisable as a track but it continues onwards and upwards as a sheep trod, deep and wet and muddy as it passes between two narrow spruce shelter belts on its way to the larachs on the side of Craig Hill.

In this autumn landscape the geological and historical formations and the continuing development of the valley over the millennia had become quite obvious.

The Esk, winding its way along the soft alluvial ground on the floor of the valley from Burnfoot to Potholm and the relics of Barntalloch Castle describes a large horseshoe bend with other lesser crooks in twists between before heading through the woodlands to Langholm.

The enclosed area was undulating and low lying with numerous ridges, mounds or eskers left by the glaciers as they retreated up Eskdale in the wake of the last Ice Age.

As Tam the Retriever and I slipped and stumbled along the hill trod on this late September afternoon, I was a bit disconcerted to see a tiny flock of four birds swooping past me.

The four young swallows repeated this manoeuvre several times before flying off in search of food but the flies were fast disappearing and the rest of the swallows had gone a few weeks ago.

The swallow depends for its food on the insect population during long summer days, while other birds usually have many other sources. This quartet of swallows was obviously from a late brood from which the others had already flown. With every day that passed, their chances of survival would inevitably become less but who knows? They might be lucky.

As recently as 190 years ago, many people thought swallows or hirondels hibernated in the same way as bats. A flock of swallows would be in evidence one day and would then disappear, only to return another sunny day.

The whole flock might seem to disappear and then return once more for a few days until the approach of winter was heralded with finality.

The swallows were then thought to hibernate in holes on the river banks. What was not realised was that the observers were, in fact, seeing a succession of different flocks of swallows before they collected to resume their enormous journey to South Africa.

However, we were soon onto the shank of the Craig Hill where we found relics of the ancient watch tower which, of course, was now a circular heap of stones with a view in all directions. We followed the trod down to the road in the footsteps of the ancient people. I can well imagine the lines of sentries portaging their heavy loads of weapons, water and foodstuffs.

Or, perhaps, the teams of porters were, in fact, slave labourers. By the time we reached the roadway, it was dusk and full darkness was almost upon us when the moon rose over the eastern hills.