The High Road to Hermitage...

 

In 1566 Mary, Queen of Scots rode the prehistoric path through the Borders to Hermitage Castle, to visit her wounded lover the Earl of Bothwell.

 

This iconic route, known as the Queen's Mire, has been partly forested out with a commercial plantation of sitka spruce, and it is now no longer possible to walk or ride this incredible ancient right of way.

 

Worse still, the route itself has recently been removed from existence as a right of way, and has been edited out of maps in anticipation of one on the UK's largest proposed wind farms, to be located in the unrivalled beauty, and the historic heart of pristine, unsurveyed, Reiver land. 

 

Our aim is not only to reinstate the route, but ultimately to facilitate the way lined and planted with indigenous broadleaf trees and Mary's rose, 

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The Trust also aims to promote the way as of international cultural importance, as it deserves to be ridden and walked, for the future benefit of all, and for the region in terms of positive regeneration.

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To this end the Trust needs fighting funds!

 

We believe legal action is necessary to preserve the pristine cultural heritage of our ancestral lands, whose descendants have settled and forged the world over.

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The lands of our ancestors have been set aside for commercial blanket forestry, and vast wind farms.

Consequently attempts to preserve their cultural heritage and natural landscape are apparently routinely blocked.

 

To date no UK Government organisation or individual have supported this venture. No Heritage Lottery bids submitted have succeeded.

 

On a more positive note, Spring 2022 will see the return to Scotland of Mary, Queen of Scots' personal devotional chair – lost for 450 years – to be exhibited at the Borderlands Museum. We would like to take this as an opportunity to launch this campaign.

 

Help us put Queen Mary's Path back on the map!