Re'port of the Meetings for 1895. 231 



Hermitage from Newcastleton, Liddesdale. 



The Third Meeting of the season was held on Wednesday, 

 31st July, at Newcastleton for the Black Burn, Hermitage, 

 and the encircling fells, and encountered several drawbacks, 

 but everyone present declared it to be enjoyable. A spate 

 of rain had fallen in the district some days previously, 

 which had swollen the wild hill streams and inundated 

 their banks, and the dean of the Black Burn, which has 

 never been explored bj' the Club, was impassable. Hermitage 

 Castle furnished the main object of attraction during the 

 day. Members who wished conveyances had forgotten that 

 Newcastleton can only furnish one brake, and that its 

 resources are limited for entertaining a large company, and 

 far more arrived in the morning than were expected or had 

 applied. Eight sent notice and upwards of thirty came. 

 This occasioned considerable delay. Another brake was 

 telegraphed from Canonbie, but still some 6 or 7 could not 

 be accommodated, and had to take the journey on foot up 

 the glen. With a clear sky overhead, this was no hardship. 

 In the early days of the Club everyone present would have 

 walked. Fortunately for the commissariat, Tweed Salmon, 

 in full supply, had been transmitted. 34 attended and 28 

 dined. Mr John Elliot, Newcastleton, volunteered his assist- 

 ance, and proved to be an interesting and capable guide, 

 as well as an old friend of the Club. 



The localities between Newcastleton and the mouth of 

 Hermitage Water were already put on record, in the account 

 of the Club's tour up the Liddel to Saughtree. The drive 

 was made deliberately withcmt hurry. Before reaching the 

 Castle, there is a considerable Hazel copse by the water 

 side, which yields a good supply of nuts in their season- 

 So much time was given to the Castle that little else was 

 done. A large proportion of it is modern. 



On leaving it the botanists scrambled for a short while 

 up a glen, traversed by a burn still heavy with rain. The 

 plants picked up, besides the usual ferns, were Nepeta cataria 

 Mentha aquatica, Saussurea alpina, Adoxa moschatellina, Lysimachia 

 nummularia, Hypericum humifusum and H. pulchrum, Stachys 

 sylvatica, and Chrysosplenium oppositifolium. The last was 

 growing within the Castle. 



