Track beside Hutcheson Hill

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 3 Jul 2015

This part of the track may correspond to the line of the Military Way, which was built in connection with the Antonine Wall. The Military Way was a road that, for the entire length of the Wall, ran a short distance to the south of the Wall's rampart. The first-edition OS map (surveyed in 1861) goes as far as to label a section of this track, including the part shown in this picture, "site of the Military Way". Later editions (until the Second World War, if not later) do likewise. The slopes of Hutcheson Hill are on the left; the ditch of the Antonine Wall can be followed over that hill (see Image and related images). This track, at the foot of the slopes of Hutcheson Hill, does appear to be in at least the right general area for the Military Way; the antiquarian Alexander Gordon, in his 1727 work "Itinerarium Septentrionale", discusses its course here (referring to it as "the Causeway"): "From the above-mentioned Rivulet called the Cladden Burn, I observed the Causeway takes a Turn considerably Southward from the Ditch, keeping by the Declivity or Foot of Hutcheson Hill, no doubt for the easier marching of the Soldiers who travelled along it." See Image for more on that subject.

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