Shien Hill (NO 174267, c.210m)
Pole Hill (NO 196261, 288m)
Law Hill (NO 170259, c.255m)
Murrayshall Hill (NO 165254, 279m)
12.1 kilometres
350m of ascent (including detours)
Contains OS OpenData © Crown copyright and database right 2018
The original object of this jaunt was to see if I could find easy access to Pole Hill, which I’ve previously visited. On that trip, I came over from Beal Hill, visited the fort on Evelick Hill, and found myself a little stymied by a fearsome double fence that is marked on the map as running completely around the summit of Pole Hill. On that occasion I had to crawl under one section to gain access to the summit area from the Evelick side, but it seemed to me that there had to be a gap in the fence somewhere. So this was a reconnaissance trip, coming in from the west.
I found roadside parking next to the golf course at NO 163260, and walked back to a farm entrance at the crossroads which took me along a succession of muddy tracks to the flank of Shien Hill. The summit is surrounded by fenced forestry, but there are a couple of points along the track where it’s easy to step over. The Ordnance Survey marks the summit as bearing a prehistoric cairn. I’m used to these being completely invisible under the turf, so I was a little taken aback by the conical mound, a good five metres high, that appeared out of the trees, with a roe deer peering down at me anxiously before bounding away. Canmore describes the cairn as “apparently undisturbed”, but I was more than a little disturbed by the time I had pushed up through the nettles and thistles to reach the top.
Summit cairn of Shien Hill
Shien Hill gets its name from the Gaelic sithean, “fairy”, and I’m not surprised that such a strikingly symmetrical mound was interpreted as the home of supernatural creatures.
From there, I retraced my steps to a wooden gate so that I could pick up something the OS marks as a path, but which looks more like an old wall line, leading up to a group of ruined buildings. The OS six-inch map of the 1843-1882 series calls this abandoned farm-steading Boglebee, and David Dorward suggests the name might come from Gaelic bog beith, “birch mire”. I dunno about that one—the proximity to a fairy hill makes me want to invoke bogles in the derivation.
Boglebee ruins in front of Shien Hill
The old maps show a track linking Boglebee to the Evelick-Dalreichmoor road, and modern maps show a remnant of the same. That was my route to Pole Hill. I headed across the farmland, following my nose to the northeast corner of the field, where I found a double set of gates and the start of a farm track. This quite soon dived into dense gorse, but that was easily circumvented by veering uphill for a short distance.
Approaching Pole Hill from the east
When I got to a point at which I could see Pole Hill’s protective fence, I walked up to explore it. Here, on the west of the hill, it was still a stout double-layered barrier. After casting about fruitlessly southwards, I used a corner post to help me hop over the first fence and headed east, walking between the fences.
I was soon rewarded by the appearance of a gate and stile combination at NO 19222644. I climbed over the stile and marched triumphantly up to the summit of Pole Hill, scaring up a couple of snipe on the way.
View over Evelick fort to Tay Estuary from Pole Hill
Then, in a completionist spirit, I walked off northwards to explore another section of the circumferential fence. I quickly came upon a pair of stiles at NO 19592629, which let me hop over into a field that slopes down to the Evelick-Dalreichmoor road. (I had actually come through this field when I came over from Beal Hill previously, but had headed over towards Evelick fort without exploring its upper boundary.)
So I walked out one gate on to the road, followed the road for a short distance to another gate, and linked up with the track to Boglebee. After that there was a bit more wandering around while I confirmed I could get back to the gate and stile without encountering any more obstacles. So that’s it for Pole Hill—two easy points of access from the Evelick-Dalreichmoor road, or a slightly longer approach from Boglebee.
And then more wandering, as I diverged from my outward track to take a look at another ruined farm-stead—this one is just above modern Arnbathie Farm, and labelled Turfhills on the old OS maps. Dorward is silent on that name, but I imagine it means just what it says in English.
Ruins of Turfhills farmstead
From there, I returned briefly to my outward route before striking southwards along the farm track network to reach Law Hill, which was to be my last hill of the day. The ramparts of its prehistoric fort are easily visible, though less impressive than those at nearby Evelick.
Murrayshall Hill from summit of Law Hill
As I stood on top, two things happened. Firstly, I noticed the thread of a path ascending the steep northeast end of Murrayshall Hill, just across the road. Secondly, I heard bagpipe music floating down from the vicinity of the Lyndoch Obelisk, on top of the hill. So I scooted down to the road, and then climbed a narrow slot of a path that strikes up the hillside from just north of the Easthill cottages.
Law Hill from Murrayshall Hill path
The path soon faded away, leaving me to churn up steep ground on to the shoulder of Murrayshall. At that point the music stopped, but I made it to the obelisk in time to surprise the musician, just as he was about to head downhill with his pipes slung over his shoulder in a cloth bag. His wife, he said, forbade the playing of bagpipes in the house (not unreasonably, since they’re essentially an outdoor instrument). So he was in the habit of trekking up Murrayshall Hill to “warm them up” from time to time, in a place where he could disturb no-one.
But, on this occasion, he’d unwittingly managed to lure a curious wanderer into climbing one more hill.
McDuff’s Monument above Perth, with Stuc a’Chroin and Ben Vorlich on the sky-line, from Murrayshall Hill
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I’m surprised how seldom you come across other people ( walkers , land owners ) or sheep. In Ireland there are always sheep on the hills with distinctive dye markings of their owners . Meeting a bagpiper must have been awesome and authentic Scotland ! I am awaiting your book of Sidlaw Treks complete with photos ( You might take Boon Companion’s canera sometime ! )
I try to avoid livestock, so the sheep are usually in a neighbouring field. Occasional wave from a landowner. And other walkers are rare outside the customary dog-walking areas. Of course, that might change if there was a lavishly illustrated guidebook.
This walk of yours gave me about 45 minutes of effort trying to find Murrayshall Hill on the Google ‘satellite’ photo. I ended up using your map, an OS Map & Streetmap.co UK to eventually find it – I think. I am sure that a shadow being cast in the middle of an apparently bare field is the obelisk. I had to drop the “yellow man” onto a nearby road to confirm that it actually was a hill. Thanks for the fun.
I was intrigued by the photo of Arnbathie Farm, especially the large number or “rolls of something outside the large shed. I actually had a look on Google and could see the same type, if a lesser number of “rolls”. and convinced myself that they are hay bales wrapped in plastic. The satellite picture showed a lot of land under cultivation and only a small number of cattle.
If you want to confirm your finding, the obelisk as it lat 56.413026, lon -3.355393.
Yes, those would be plastic wrapped hay bales you’re seeing. There are a lot of cattle inside the large sheds visible in the photo, to judge from the noise.
I was feeling proud of myself now I seem to be lost. When I put your co-ordinates into Google Earth I land somewhere North/East of Pitlochry. The ‘obelisk’ I thought I had found is at 56°24’46.87″N 3°21’19.30″W on Google Earth. Looking at Hill-Bagging.Co.UK I get very close to your coordinates for ‘my’ obelisk. Is Google Earth wrong – or am I merely incompetent? (I know what I would put my money on.)
Thanks for the bit about the farm.I was wondering why they had such a big shed. I never thought of putting cattle inside – blinded by my location where cattle don’t need to be sheltered I guess.
Your coordinates, in degrees minutes and seconds, are pretty much the same (down to the fourth decimal place) as my coordinates in decimal degrees. If I cut and paste my lat and lon into Google Earth, it pins the base of the monument shadow pretty precisely.
Have you entered my figures as if they were in degrees, minutes and seconds, by any chance?
Mystery solved See, I told you to put money on who was incompetent – me.
I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t know that there were decimal degrees and I was wondering about the “odd” way you wrote the co-ordinates. I only occasionally use our GPS – mainly overseas and I would normally put in an address rather than co-ordinates.
I am always happy to learn something new – even if it does demonstrate the depth of my ignorance.
It was just unfortunate that the decimal digits didn’t throw up a “minutes” or “seconds” value that was greater than 59, which would have alerted you to the problem.
There are a number of on-line converters you could use to convert the OS grid figures to latitude and longitude. The most straightforward I’ve found is here. You can simply cut and paste the format I use (including the initial letter pair), hit return, and read off the equivalent coordinates (WGS is appropriate for Google Earth).
Be aware that 6-figure grid references define a 100m square, so they won’t take you to the exact location. Good practice is to give the coordinates of the SW corner of the square in which the feature lies, but I have a bad habit of intermittently and absent-mindedly specifying nearest corner instead.
Thanks for the tips
Mixture of lovely rough moors and BigFarm encroachment. Barbed wire fences everywhere. Hope they stop the destruction.