Scott's View at Sunset, the Scottish Borders

The tumbling sun passes beneath the clouds and casts the Tweed valley in soft, peach light. All the lives of men have come into this span of coppery sky and fecund sward and gone, as if raked away by the long, reaching shadows of oak and hawthorn. Here, from Sir Walter Scott’s View, the Scottish Borders lay bare. The secrets of its long-abandoned towers, ruined abbeys, and crumbling forts fill the air, and the Eildon Hills, where the Faery Queen stole Thomas Rhymer away, take on the profile of a colossal face pressing up from the earth to speak them. Listening above the wind the mind overflows with the echoes of forgotten beliefs, broken promises, tears of joy and sorrow, declarations of love, and belly laughs of those who have gone before.  

I crouch on a stone wall above a hillside draped in yellow gorse flowers as the Kelso camera club set up their tripods. I wait for the clouds to slide east, the fingers of light to stretch forth after them. That moment arrives. The air swells and the view crosses from sight into melody and then beyond, a dagger of wonder cleaving deep into the heart of the unnumbered senses.

Article Comments

  1. Ken May 15, 2014 at 7:20 am

    So beautiful!

  2. Carmene May 27, 2014 at 12:51 am

    Looks like a view from an RPG game, lol.

  3. rebecca June 2, 2014 at 1:54 am

    WOW!

  4. Katarzyna June 24, 2014 at 7:03 am

    Love Scott’s View. Stunning place, so calm and beautiful.

  5. Alice July 12, 2014 at 8:19 am

    Stunning Scotland, great capture of sun rays

  6. […] near many other sights it seems to be passed over for higher profile places like the abbeys or Scott’s View. Don’t miss a visit to Smailholm Tower the next time you pass through the […]

  7. […] east of Abbotsford lies one of the Scottish Borders’s greatest viewpoints: Scott’s View. This was the place where Sir Walter Scott would stop on his way home to Abbotsford and take in the […]

  8. […] place where Sir Walter Scott would stop on his way home to Abbotsford and take in the gorgeous Tweed Valley and Eildon Hills. Over time the view acquired his namesake, and I imagine it is as stunning today as it was back in […]

  9. […] and gone, as if raked away by the long, reaching shadows of oak and hawthorn. Here, from Sir Walter Scott’s View, the Scottish Borders lay bare. The secrets of its long-abandoned towers, ruined abbeys, and […]

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