A New Path on an Old Walk

Whenever it is a wet Wednesday and our wee group of walkers have nothing planned away from Langholm we opt for an Umbrella walk round Potholm and today was no different. With much moaning and groaning mainly because the three of us could not think of any other route that was not deep in mud we headed off.

Just as we reached Langholm Academy John announced he had never seen his name on the Board of Duxes so Tom decided to put that right and we headed into the school.

So here it is with John R Irving Dux in 1963. An interesting fact is that only one Dux never left Langholm but left school and spent her entire life working in the town namely Jean White who was Dux in 1927 .

After leaving the school we headed up to Holmwood and noticed a gap in the wall so decided to explore and discovered this strange thing. If anybody can tell us what it was used for we would be grateful.

It seems to have been built in a man made mound and the tree on it has only grown there long after it fell into disuse.

It was probably built by the Buccleuch family as it is on the estate of what used to be the big house.

From there we walked along the path on the side of the wall from the road which we never knew existed.

Eventually we had to come back onto the road when just a hundred or so yards further along Tom took us to this notice

He had erected it 30 years ago when he worked for the council.

We headed on round Potholm and by the time we reached half way we met Mrs. Tootlepedal on her morning bike run and just as we left her the rain came on with a vengeance so we were very wet by the time we got home.

Despite the rain we had turned a boring walk into an eventful one so everybody was happy.

To end the blog I enclude a rare photo of 3 past Duxes taken on one of our Birthday Walks a few years ago. 

The Duxes are John Irving, Martin Little, and David Stevenson and the years they were Dux were 1963, 58, and 56.