Broughton Heights and Trahenna Hill

Crawford Macnab

25 September 2024

Our nine strong group of Marauders (Crawford, Moira C, Pam, Sarah, Jan, Graham, Marion, Stuart and Richard) gathered at the car park beyond the castle at Broughton Place. Not forgetting Richard’s dog Meg.

A few days prior to the walk the weather forecast had not been great so it was a welcome surprise to find ourselves putting on our boots in warming sunshine.

The start of the walk provided a gentle warm up as we followed a section of the John Buchan Way up the glen of the Hollow Burn. Clear blue skys with Hammer Head prominent in the distance.

Suitably warmed up, after a brief stop to take some layers off, we soon reached the bealach between Clover Law and Broomy Side. From here we left the John Buchan Way and headed north over the bumps of Broomy Side, Green Law and finally reaching the top of Broughton Heights at 571m. The views west and north were extensive with good visibility.

The summit itself was unspectacular with a bit of a cairn and a trig point.

A selfie proving there was indeed a trig point at the top!

By this time there were more clouds appearing and the temperature dropped in the cold wind from the east. We retraced our steps part way back along our route and found a sheltered west facing slope for lunch.

With a little help from the Peakfinder app, we could make out the sleeping warrior profile of Arran, Ben Lomond and other Munros in the distance.

Suitably refuelled we continued back along our route to reach the bealach again.

From here we briefly headed east on the JBW before taking care on the short, very steep section up to join the south west ridge of Hammer Head. Fortunately this was brief and completed all the major uphill for the day. At 513m Hammer Head was almost as high as Broughton Heights / Trahenna Hill and certainly had the most impressive cairn of the day.

Some minor up and down took us over the bumps of Green Lairs and Grey Yade before we reached the optional out and back to the true summit of Trahenna Hill.

The tiny cairn on Trahenna Hill was not much to look, so much so that Graham had carried a decent sized rock (see photo) all the way from Hammer Head to add to the cairn. Or had he?!

By now there were some more serious clouds developing and certainly not too far away we could see some showers. We retraced our steps to rejoin the grassy ridge and descended south west, then north west from Cat Cleuch Head to reach our starting point.

Throughout the walk we had witnessed much evidence of relatively recent tree felling on the adjacent slopes.

On our final descent we passed close by to one of these and it was nice to see that new trees had indeed been planted.

Having made good time we stopped at the excellent Laurel Bank Tea Room for well earned teas, coffees, scones and cakes. With no actual scones out on display it was a tricky decision to choose between the fruit scone or the cheese scone. Everyone was happy with their choices but it certainly looked like Stuart’s cheese scone was the clear winner!

Crawford Macnab