47G Report of Meetings for 1889. By Dr. J. Hardy. 



To turn again to the scene before us, a flock of sheep that morning had 

 traversed the Wheel Causeway, and revealed its upward course over the 

 hill ridge, by ruffling the bent. It is still a Drove Road. It, and the 

 track by the Note-o'-the-Gate, were the only passes into Upper Liddesdale 

 from the northward, and by these, the Highlanders in two divisions 

 descended. Besides these there are disused smuggling roads. Several of 

 the Highlanders having noted the capabilities of these wild hills for con- 

 ducting illicit distilleries, returned here after their dispersion, and stories 

 of their cunning shifts to elude the gaugers, are still fresh in the memories 

 of the old shepherds. After looking at some of the tumuli near the old 

 Kirk, and having pointed out examples of the Kiln-pots, already fully 

 described by Mr Smail (Club's Hist, ix., pp. 121-2,) which resemble the 

 circular hollows of deserted coal-pits, we tried to ascertain where the 

 Causeway and the Catrail crossed, but they were so much effaced here, 

 that no definite result was obtainable. It would require careful excava- 

 tions to r-eveal which was the older of the two. The relation of this and 

 other causeways or roads, to other native divisional dikes, requires to be 

 surveyed and mapped before any satisfactory theory of their age can be 

 arrived at. 



Passing along the line of the Catrail, and leaving it at Rigfoot, we 

 reached the turnpike again at Muirdykes, a point about two miles nearer 

 Bellingham than the site of the British camps. Thence we drove through 

 the flat gap between the hills, among green pastures, into England, seeing 

 on our left the Deadwater Fells, with their bracken cinctnres round the 

 skirts, and rather tame-featured crags, and the clustered congeries of hill- 

 tops behind Kielder, one of which, Pearl Pell, is '' fantastically crowned 

 with 4. rude pillars of stone set up by shepherds, and called Pikes." On 

 the right was the terminus of the Larriston Fells, on Thorlieshope ground. 

 The Thorlieshope Lime-kilns and Fairloans freestone quarries lie on the 

 slopes. It was at this Fairloans that Telfer picked up the story of Parcy 

 Reed, and not at Fairloans near Kalewater head, as stated by Robert 

 White, and as I have quoted in the present volume, at p. 407. 



The Deadwater sulphur spring was once in great vogue, for the cure of 

 cutaneous disorders, and was patronised yearly by visitors from Hawick, 

 Jedburgh, etc. Young people also in the neighbourhood were obliged to 

 submit to its regular application annually, by their parents, and the time 

 spent there was considered as a holiday. The water was not only drunk 

 on the spot, but was conveyed to a distance. One of its owners erected 

 marble baths and other accommodations for the use of persons seeking the 

 benefit of its waters. His successor seeing that it encouraged trespassers, 

 poachers, &c, to come about and disturb both game and stock, had the 

 baths and conveniences removed. During the summer months, occasional 

 visitors still find their way to try its effects on their frames. 



The boundary between Scotland and England is crossed before reaching 

 Deadwater Cottage. Bell's Burn comes down from a cleugh on the right ; 

 a few trees are visible near a rock} r fissure (Bell's Linn) before it finally 

 leaves the hills to unite with the Deadwater. The site of Bell's Kirk was 

 near the junction of the two burns, opposite to the Rinds hill. This Kirk 



