Press : WanderlustJournal

Byre Cottage Review : 'Beauty of the Highlands but closer to home'

'This hilly oasis has a real majesty, rising up in a rugged spine of peaks to the city’s south.

It well deserves its accolade of being an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and one of the comments I often get from friends I take is ‘this could be the Highlands’. It could with its hills, glens and lochs. Winter is a great time to book a break to the Pentlands. It’s a good time too for spotting the bountiful birds of prey, who will be out hunting for scarcer food sources. If there is a dusting of snow the park’s deer are also much easier to spot...'

'...when you reach the summit, you’ll instantly see what I love about the Pentlands as a wildscape of hills unfurls all around, as well as lochs and a broad swathe of the Lothians down towards the Borders.

A day trip will give you an alluring snapshot of what the Pentlands offer, but I thoroughly recommend staying over if you can. On my latest visit I chose Eastside Cottages. This quartet of luxurious stone cottages is built around a working sheep farm and boasts lashings of character to back up décor that real thought has gone into.

My girls loved the fact that we could see rugged hill sheep just outside the window from the Byre (a brilliantly refashioned old cow shed) and also have the occasional horse or pony amble by.

As we had my two girls, Tara and Emma, with us, as well as their wee pal Amelia, we appreciated the big kitchen diner at the Byre Cottage and the living room upstairs with its cosy wood-burning stove.

Eastside Cottages made for the ideal base for exploring the Pentlands. Walking is one of the great highlights of the area – with 100km of waymarked trails – and we set off right from our cottage to tackle a couple of the hills. I’ve been up most of them, but not East and West Kip, which handily rise up in front of Eastside. We were soon up on a ridge and then sat on the summit gazing back towards the Forth bridges in our hometown of South Queensferry...'

'...Eastside is that sort of place. It’s family-run and family-friendly. It would be great for cosy couples too and groups of friends taking a few cottages.

One place we’d not discovered before, that we visited this time on the recommendation of Jenny at Eastside, was the Secret Herb Garden. This 7.5- acre herb nursery boasts a lovely café as well as a shop stocked with vintage furniture if you want something really special to take home. You can explore their gardens too. The girls thought this quirky oasis glorious fun – it was, the antithesis of soft play centres and they loved the bug catching kit they picked up.

The next morning we decided to branch out and explore the area’s rich history. Castlelaw Hill Fort put us instantly in touch with our Iron Age hill fort ancestors. It sits on an impressive defensive site, which is woven around a trio of ringed ramparts and ditches, with an earth house to explore.

The girls were amazed to imagine people eking out a living right on this spot thousands of years ago and they were intrigued that Roman artefacts have been found here too.

There is plenty more to explore nearby and if you are not from Edinburgh the Pentland Hills actually make for a really handy base, being such a short drive away from the city, with a decent bus connection too with the bottom of the farm track at Eastside. Rosslyn Chapel also lies within easy reach for history buffs and fans of the Da Vinci Code book and film.

Back in the Pentland Hills proper it’s not just all about walking. The trails here – which were originally forged by drovers herding their cattle over the hill passes to market – are ideal for horse riding and mountain biking too. My girls have been out pony trekking in the Pentlands Hills with the people at Swanston Farm and enjoyed ambling around the trails.

If fishing is more your thing you can take or hire a rod and enjoy a session at Glencorse Reservoir. The prized catch here is trout. We didn’t get the chance, but landing a fresh trout and cooking it up for supper at Eastside would have been ideal and not an experience you’d imagine so close to Edinburgh...'

Explore the Byre