Peebles, River Tweed, Neidpath Castle and Manor Bridge

The walk begins at Kingsmeadow and then crosses Peeble's Tweed Bridge to follow the northside riverbank. This stretch of the river, noted for many species of fish including the town's emblematic salmon, is an SSSI - site of special scientific interest.

On early summer evenings, the river bubbles and boils with trout rising for flies. From September to November, the autumn spate raises the water levels sufficiently for salmon to migrate upstream from the open sea. In October especially, the heavy splash of leaping fish echoes along the riverbank.

On a rocky outcrop, above a sweeping bend in the river stands Neidpath Castle, guarding the entrance to Peebles. A stark, forbidding tower, it was besieged during the Civil War by Oliver Cromwell in 1650, and damage done by the Parliamentarian cannons can still be seen in the southwest corner.

Beautifully restored in the late twentieth century by the Earl of Wemyss and March, the castle is open to the public in season, and well worth a visit. Its balconies look along the course of the Tweed through Peebles, and far into the hills beyond. In its once formal gardens, laid out in wide terraces, slope gently down to the river. The castle also has a resident 'ghost', a white lady whose identity remains a mystery.

Further on, the splendid seven arched Victorian railway viaduct was opened in 1864 to extend the Biggar, Broughton and Symington line into Peebles. Never a commercial success, the passenger service closed in 1950. On the other side of the bridge, the disused line runs beneath South Park Wood through an eerie half mile long tunnel.

At Manor Bridge, the Manor Water enters the Tweed. In the 18th century, poachers practiced the 'sport' of burning the water here; they gathered by torchlight to slaughter the spawning salmon in their hundreds with long handled tridents. Poaching remains a problem on the Tweed and its tributaries, compounded by the growth in numbers of mink, an unwanted alien species which preys on the fish and small mammals of the river.

The path crosses Manor Bridge and follows the gentle contours of the river back through South Park Wood, a richly mixed plantation of oak, elm, alder, silver birch, larch, spruce and poplar. The wood is an ideal habitat for treecreepers, great spotted woodpeckers, goldcrests and waxwings. Red Squirrels chew noisily on fir cones, secure in their compact dreys twenty feet above the forest floor, in the forks between tree trunks and side branches.

On the opposite bank of the river to Neidpath Castle is Artist's Rock, where generations have sat and sketched their interpretation of the castle. The reprobate William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensbury destroyed Neidpath's terraces as an act of malice towards his heir, and felled the surrounding trees to finance his extravagant London lifestyle. Fortunately he failed to completely destroy this fine view. A short stroll from here along the riverbank takes you back to the start and to welcome refreshments in Peebles.