Former Lines of Road about Ashiesteel. 331 



Before the Yair bridge was built, the road from Edinburgh 

 to Selkirk crossed the Tweed at the King's ford, otherwise 

 Blakehope ford, that is the shallow below the mouth of the 

 Caddon, and went down the south bank of the river 

 through Yair. 



It should be mentioned, that an examination of the Ordnance 

 Map, with a view to the point, shows it must have been a 

 complete mistake that the road by the Glenkinnon Burn 

 could ever have been a short cut between Ashiesteel and 

 Yair; as compared to the old highroad, it is two sides of 

 a triangle to one. Though the often-quoted story of Sir 

 Walter's dog, Camp, when disabled from following him, going 

 to meet him returning to Ashiesteel, either by the ford or 

 by the hill, as he was directed, does look as if he was in 

 the habit of riding across the ridge of the Peel Hill, which 

 was, no doubt, less enclosed then than now, straight to the 

 old entrance of Ashiesteel, now a small gate leading to the 

 garden, there being then only a foot bridge, if any at all, 

 over the linn, as the ravine was called. The old road over 

 the shoulder of the liill survived the enclosing of the fields, 

 and the gate it passed through may be seen in the dyke 

 against the sky line from the Shirra's Knowe, which is all 

 but cut into by the present line of road up the valley. But 

 this line would be such a round, that I am inclined to think, 

 riding home late to supper. Sir Walter would probably take 

 the nearest way, by the highroad through Yair, and cross 

 the small plain called the Yair Moor, to the east of the 

 Craig Hill, the dykes on which are quite modern. 



It was on this moor, apparently, that old Jenny Spence, 

 a hen- wife, who was long at Yair, saiv the fairies, some years 

 before her death. She was probably wandering late in quest 

 of her turkeys, to which she was much devoted ; birds which 

 retain the instinct of wildness with much delicacy of 

 constitution. 



It should be mentioned, that Inverleithen, in Peeblesshire, 

 would, in Sir Walter's time, be reached by crossing Ashiesteel 

 ford ; and though Traquair church was the regular place of 

 worship of the Russells, the Scotts seem to have considered 

 it too far off. 



It seems not unlikely that the cross, of which the shaft, 

 now in the Antiquarian Museum, was fouud, about five 



