East Lothian Trails....some exploration...

i kinda know East Lothian like the back of my hand but there are a few wee areas where on the map are trails i haven't ridden or explored yet,one small bit was some trails SW of Gifford Village which lead south onto Priest Law on the Lammermuir Hills below Lammer Law which dominates the northen side of the Lammermuirs here on the East Lothian side,
a text from friend Andy inquiring about if going out anywhere Sunday saw me meeting Andrew and Moray Sunday morning in Gifford to lead a ride through local trails around Gifford and up onto the Lammermuirs...
riding up through Yester Woods and a steepening climb up past the old Quarry caught our breath...



through some new gates and fences led past a nice loch...


Priest Law up ahead...

the view down across to the lime kilns at Kidlaw...

onto the track and into the granny ring to begin the long winch up...


was happy to stop for a picture to get a breather...

reaching a small saddle below the summit the view ahead was through to Soutra wind farm...

now a bike hike-a-bike up to the summit cairn...






and great views today...across to the Pentlands and Edinburgh...

and across the plain of East Lothian...

now to follow a faint line up and round to Lammer Law...the heather is now in flower and the noise of the bee`s was all you could here up here...


i may be wrong but theres a good chance this is a shell hole from WW2, Polish tank regiments trained up here and across to Meikles Says Law...

eventually we reached the summit cairn and trig point of Lammer Law...

there was a massive wasp nest up on top of the cairn...pity as i wanted to stand up there and take pics...

great views of the county again...



with lots of wasps buzzing about we split and headed down to the main track over Lammer law, this is a very old Right of Way,also a border and parish boundry, also an ace descent by bicycle!...

i pinch flatted as the track levelled out ,after a quick tube swap it was down to the tarmac and a quick pic at the ROW sign with the on-one 456 as i have one here of nearly every mtb over the last 10 years...

stopping at Longyester to see a friend i took some pics of the old sign down the road that alot of people miss...

read what it says, `impassable for motors`, also Lammerlaw is given a distance aswell as Carfraemill on the A68,distances are given to within 8ths of a mile...

we then headed a short road ride down into Yester Woods to visit the Goblin Ha Castle...its stone vaulted minature hall is pretty cool...




accessed from a small tunnel passage...


inside in the vaulted hall...

a passage descends to the dungons and well...now sealed off it gives a clostaphobic feel as you descend bent over in the small tunnel...



cant see alot of the castle outside with the leaf cover on the trees, heres a film i made here early last year...spooky place on your own!...



up a short hill and down a nice trail and back through the estate to gifford...

look at the size of the beech tree...

down at Gifford and some trails around the village,along the river then around station woods and fawn woods and along an old unsealed road to see some cool stuff...
slate artwork...


you know the `disgrace of Edinburgh` on Carlton Hill in Edinburgh?, well maybe this is the Gifford one...

and finaly a hanging picture frame to view the countryside...

the three MXTR`s

time to call it a day after 6 hours, didnt find any magic buff single track around Priest Law but nice to have now riden the trail ive looked at on the map,that climb would certinaly be fun descending...
some stats from Andrews garmin...

ive got it mapped...

i got a lovely collection of maps the other night that belonged to an ex-workmates grandad...
it was a big bag which included 36 `inch to mile` ordance survey maps as well as various other touring maps and towns maps from the 1970s...

added to my own inch to mile maps im well on the way now at 2/3rds there to having all 81 maps of scotland in the older imperial series...so why would you want these?,
well these maps have alot of features and old roads in some countys omitted on modern metric 1:50.000 OS landrangers,and are great when compared to modern maps to find old unmaintained and sometimes lost roads...roads once used that often look like this...



the eastern countys of fife,east lothian and particulary berwickshire which is the next county down from here in east lothian on the border with england has a lot of unmaintained roads which somehow have been missed when remapping...these were the type of roads we looked for when motorcycling offroad,later in the year i will visit and post pics of some of them...some have overgrowen twin hawthorn or beech hedges lining them in the middle of mature woods with a stone bottomed ford crossing a burn and although locals all know about them and may remmember them in use they have been missed by the map makers...when you compare old and new maps and think you found something then see it on the ground which only happens once in many times of looking its a great buzz,i know of one such lost road with a stone milage marker for instance..some countys like berwickshire had so many roads in the countryside there just must of been mistakes...there not going anywhere,just waiting to be rediscovered...
i also got a great geological survey map published 1957...

great detail of the rocks that make up scotland...


and this `robert the bruce` history trail map which details all places and events associated with the king of scots...


added to a growing collection of older maps these complement some nice old books i have which include this beauty from the early 1970s...

more for historical buildings and artifacts than old roads it is full of great info to look at anywhere you may visit in scotland...