Park and start

This is a short, easy walk, starting from the car park at Fruid Dam and walking to the site of Hawkshaw Castle. Most of the path is easy to walk on. There are a couple of styles to climb, and the last section of the walk through the sheep field can be boggy and rough, and you may have to negotiate nettles.

Parking

Park in the public car park in front of Fruid Reservoir.

Start the walk by going through the gate in front of the dam and walking along the roadway that runs the length of the dam. You will see the unusual building of the Scottish Water control house, built in the 1960s. It still contains offices today.

Fruid Reservoir

Fruid Reservoir was completed in 1968, and water is piped through tunnels in the hillside to nearby Talla Reservoir to supplement the supply of drinking water for Edinburgh.

Farmland and buildings were sacrificed to build the reservoir (Fruid, Hawkshaw and Carterhope), and are now underneath the water. There is also a chapel and a graveyard lost under the water, and the baptismal font from this kirk now forms part of the signpost directing travellers at the crossroads in Tweedsmuir Village. The chapel was located on the banks of Chapel Burn, a tributary of Fruid Water.

Roman Marble Head

In 1793, a Roman marble head, discovered in one of the fields now under Fruid Reservoir, was donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. The head was discovered while the field was being ploughed, and there is lots of speculation as to how this Roman artifact found its way to Fruid. It may have been treasure stollen on a raid. It appears to have been violently hacked from the rest of the statue. It is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Bronze Age Archaeology

Recently, during a dry spell, Bronze Age remains were uncovered when the water level in the reservoir dropped, and an archaeological dig from 2003 to 2007 attempted to discover as much as possible during dry summers about the site on the edge of the reservoir. Biggar Archaeological Group excavated two Bronze Age houses, dating them to about 3500 years ago. They found many artefacts, including a bronze axe.

Once you reach the end of the dam, the road curves round and you pass thorough a gate onto an old road complete with passing places that curves round the side of the hill until you see Benner Dodd Hill in the distance and a field surrounded by a stone dyke. This field is ‘inbye’ land, where the farmer keeps ewes during lambing time. This inbye land is usually improved, sheltered land on a hill farm that allows extra attention to be paid to the sheep at this important time.

Monitoring water

You then will arrive at the small concrete building next to a small pool. This building was used to monitor water flow before the Edinburgh Corporation (now managed by Scottish Water) decided which valley to dam to provide water for Edinburgh, in the 1950s. You will have to clamber over a couple of styles to get to the other side of the water monitoring station.