Mute Hill - Buckland Bridge - Dundrennan and back

AT THE END OF the 1930s, when Amy Smith was seventeen, she left her domestic post in Kirkcudbright to take up a new situation with the Hogg family at Gribdae farm. The change brought a welcome increase in her wages, from 25 shillings a month to £2 - and her employers paid for her uniforms.

Amy admits to a moment of panic on first glimpsing the big, old farmhouse, set well back from the road. "I thought it was the most remote, desolate place imaginable," she remembers. In fact, she spent happy years there.

Apart from general work in the house, Amy looked after Robin, the Hoggs' three year old son, whom she used to take out in the fields on his donkey called Minnie. "Sometimes," she recalls, "we would take a picnic tea to the loch on the farm."

"After the war started, of course, everyone on the farm worked at everything that had to be done so there were lots of jobs in the fields as well." Amy was given every Wednesday afternoon off and on one Sunday she was free from 3 p.m., the next she was on holiday from 11 a.m.

The Hoggs had their own pew in St Cuthbert's and Amy attended the service with them on alternate Sundays. She still mourns the beautiful Bible that she left behind one Sunday. "It was a school prize for religious knowledge and I was so proud of it. When I looked for it next time I went to church, it had disappeared."

While at Gribdae, Amy met her future husband, Kelly, who also worked on the farm. They began 'walking out' when they had free time together. When Amy talks about going for a walk on a Sunday afternoon, she really means going for a walk.

Their favourite route was a circular tour starting at Gribdae, down into Dundrennan village, and back, via the Buckland Bridge - around eight miles. Visitors to Kirkcudbright will find it an enjoyable and worthwhile ramble through some beautiful countryside, and traffic is still light enough on these narrow country lanes for walking to be a pleasure.

ALTHOUGH Amy's circular route began and ended at Gribdae, visitors may find it easier to begin the walk from Mute Hill on the A711, just past the Sandside.

A narrow road on the left follows the Buckland Burn up to the bridge. It passes High Banks farm on whose land can be seen a remarkable example of prehistoric rock art depicting several cup and ring designs. Casts of these are displayed in the Kirkcudbright museum.

From the Buckland Bridge bird watchers can enjoy a wonderful view of the great numbers of buzzards which wheel and dive above the woods, known locally as Buzzard Wood. There is possibly a more official name but to Amy and other locals it has always been known as Buzzard Wood.

Turning right at the bridge the narrow lane continues, past Bombie Glen and Bombie farms (site of a moat) towards Amy and Kelly's usual starting point of Gribdae. At the end of the road leading to the farm, Amy points "I once stood and watched a rabbit being hypnotised by a weasel just about here." Visitors may not be lucky enough to see such a sight - Amy herself only witnessed it once - but there are certainly plenty of rabbits to be seen playing in the fields.

Where the road drops sharply down into Dundrennan village the views out towards the coast are superb.

Unfortunately, the village pub, once a favourite watering hole for Kirkcudbright residents, is now closed. Amy can remember it being a busy, popular place on Sundays, as were other village pubs outside the town. "In those days" she says "only bona fide travellers could be served beer or spirits on a Sunday so the Kirkcudbright town folk used to go to Dundrennan and Twynholm to get a drink." Kelly once persuaded her to go into the pub with her - though there were few women who ever went into such places then - and bought her a lemonade shandy. "I had no sooner sat down, greatly daring, than who should come in but my uncle! I slid my drink over to Kelly pretty quickly before he spotted me and carried the tale back to my father."

The remains of the 12th-century Dundrennan Abbey are well worth a visit. Try to imagine, when realising that the ruins are only of the transepts and chancel, what a truly awesome church must once have stood here. It was from here that Mary Queen of Scots departed on her ill-fated journey to England.

The last part of Amy's route returns along the A711 to Mute Hill, where she and Kelly turned right to return to Gribdae.

Mary Dunlop.