Walk Scotland's Pentland Hills with a Cicerone guidebook - Sample Route

1 Start from Dreghorn car park, just off the A720 at Dreghorn junction (NT228679). From the car park, go east towards the road entrance that you entered by and take the track that heads towards the hills. There is a signpost: ‘Castlelaw by the Howden Glen, with the co-operation of the landowner’.

Follow this track, which is tarmac in places, passing a copse of trees on a knoll called Chucklie (mistakenly) or Chuckie (correctly) Knowe. (The 1852 OS map shows a quarry here, and ‘chuckie’ is the Scots word for pebble.)

Capital views from the drystone seat commemorating the centenary of World War 1

Keep on the track, crossing a broken gate, fording a small burn and heading on the track up a grassy area until you eventually cross a bridge and reach a small stone building, Green Craig Cistern.

Green Craig Cistern, with Arthur’s Seat in the distance

Go past the cistern and head up a grassy track to the southwest. Much of the gorse has been cleared to allow native trees and shrubs to be planted, and to enable the planting of the First World War Centenary Wood, opened by the Princess Royal on 23 May 2015. There is a lovely drystone seat with magnificent views over Edinburgh.

2 Remain on the track as it climbs up the slope of White Hill (not named on OS66) and keep to it on rising ground that can be boggy in places.

3 As the ground levels out you will reach a tumbled-down drystane dyke and you may need to pick your way through the rushes alongside the dyke and fence. Keep on this path until you reach a cattle-grid and gate at NT217665.

Pick up a path that goes right, to the plantation around Bonaly Reservoir. Follow the fence and drystane dyke on your right until you reach a gate. Go through the gate and walk straight ahead downhill for a few metres, where there is a signpost indicating Bonaly.

4 Follow the path to Bonaly and you will see Bonaly Reservoir on the left. A pleasant diversion is to walk around the perimeter of the reservoir, picking out a narrow path that starts by the plantation (this is included in the 7km distance for this walk).

Back at the point from which you made your diversion round the reservoir, there is a good track leading downhill towards the woodlands of lower Bonaly Country Park.

Go through the gate at the top of the woodland, where there is another signpost indicating Bonaly. Follow this track down, past a disused building on the right and a circular stone viewpoint on the left, to reach a car park. Don’t go through the gate into the car park.

A sign by the gate at the car park indicates Dreghorn. Follow this sign and take a small path that cuts down through the trees to cross a burn by a wooden bridge. The path is very narrow here, and after about 10m ascends to a few steps to the left. An orienteering control post is here in the shrubs.

5 From the top of the steps take this path as it leads off to the east and follows the perimeter fence of Bonaly Scout Camp. There has been a good deal of woodland creation on these slopes. Areas have been fenced to exclude deer and to allow natural regeneration and additional protection to planted native woodland. The path climbs steeply and eventually flattens out, then descends through a grassy area to a gate. There is another signpost indicating Dreghorn just next to the gate. Go through the gate and walk across the field ahead of you, on a grassy path under a line of electricity pylons that marches parallel to the city bypass, roaring 400m away to your left.

Having crossed the field, the path leads onto another track next to a hedge. Stay on this until you reach a cattle-grid, and the foundations of Dreghorn Mains, a ruined farm, is on your left. The farm is about 1km from the gate and previous sign to Dreghorn. A SRWS sign at the cattle-grid points your return to Dreghorn car park, passing the farm buildings and going through a small wooden gate, with the traffic on the bypass tearing by.

Dean Burn Gorge