West Linton – A Carved Kirk and Lunch on the Farm
A few hours.
The route
West Linton sits where the old drove road comes down off the Pentland Hills, and in the 1700s great herds of Highland cattle passed through on their way south.
Its narrow Main Street keeps a stonemason's work from the 1600s, and St Andrew's Church is richly carved inside. Lunch is close by, on a farm with a café and a woodland walk.
The day
West Linton
A slow morning in West Linton's old streets and its church, then lunch at Whitmuir, a hillside farm and home to the Highland cows Morag and Maggie-Moo.
A morning, with lunch after
West Linton
Start at St Andrew's Church, by the Lower Green at the south end of the village. The church is often open by day; to be sure, ring 01968 660221 before you go. Inside, two women, Miss Jane Fergusson and Mrs Woddrop, carved the pulpit, the communion table and the whole length of the gallery front in the late 1800s. The font is older than the Reformation, and part of it lay in the river until 1929. Outside, the old gravestones are cut with skulls, hourglasses and figures. Then walk up Main Street to the clock tower, where Lady Gifford stands above the old well. Her husband James, the village stonemason, carved her around 1666, and the figure there now is a cast of 2001. Panels he carved for his own house were moved to Main Street when it came down in 1864.
8 min by car
Whitmuir Farm
Lunch
Whitmuir is about 8 minutes' drive east, a working hillside farm at Lamancha, with views back to the Pentland Hills. The café is open seven days, bakes daily and serves lunch from noon to 3pm, from a menu that follows the seasons and the farm's butchery, and there's no need to book. Dogs are welcome inside and on the covered, heated deck. After lunch, the Woodland Walk winds past fairy houses, a pond and a bug hotel, and children can play on the old farm tractor.
More about Whitmuir Farm
If it rains
The church and the café are both under a roof.
Photographs by Brian Shearey and Lewis McCulloch via Google