Ettrick and Yarrow Community Development Company.

I’m always conscious as a travel writer of avoiding dubbing communities ‘remote’, but in the case of the Ettrick and Yarrow valleys the locals I spoke to said they consider themselves remote. And not just remote, but a community that faced a real existential threat just a few short years ago. That was before the locals themselves fought back with the founding of the dynamic Ettrick and Yarrow Community Development Company.

A community who stepped up

Vicky Davidson, Project Manager for the Ettrick and Yarrow Community Development Company (EYCDC) explains, “With changing land use patterns many of the local farms – which had supported families and poured money into the local economy downstream - were lost to forestry land and not replaced. Things for a while looked brutal with few young families and less and less working age people with jobs.”

Faced with this Borders doomsday members of the community stepped up with the new body. Vicky says, “It all came out of a full-scale community consultation after we realised our community had to fix our problems ourselves. We worked with the Council and other funding and in 2013 became incorporated as a company limited by guarantee and went on to become a charity.” The community has certainly got involved with the EYCDC with nearly 300 members who live in the valleys’ postcode area.

James Hogg

An ambitious community development plan was enacted that had been germinating with ideas locally since earlier in the new millennium. “We looked at many things and worked to put them into action, such as creating walks, a lunch club, a Facebook group for the valleys, an oil buying co-operative, ran pop up shops and brought greater communication between the twin valleys.” And what valleys they are, deeply scenic swathes of impressive countryside, blessed with the sort of grandeur that inspired both Sir Walter Scott and Ettrick-born James Hogg.

Without Hogg I’d argue there would never have been Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde as the character was surely inspired by Hogg’s earlier ‘Confessions of a Justified Sinner’. Hogg, nicknamed ‘The Ettrick Shepherd’, was ridiculously talented, also a poet and recorder of Borders ballads. He is remembered today by both the James Hogg Trail and the EYCDC’s James Hogg Museum in the old Ettrick School. The ever-ambitious EYCDC don’t stop there as The Ettrick Hub here also rents out e-bikes and hosts motorhomes in the old school car park, complete with waste water facilities and wifi. There are nesting boxes and cameras too in the grounds, with future plans for a bunkhouse in the old building. Then there are charging points too.

A beautiful oasis - Ettrick Marshes

 The EYCDC also have another motorhome spot with less facilities – but a gorgeous location – down by the Ettrick Marshes by Tima Water. The Ettrick Marshes are another impressive EYCDC project. This wild and wildly beautiful oasis spreads its bucolic tentacles across 53 hectares of a conservation area. It was rewilded as a restored flood plain as a Millennium Project. Since the EYCDC took it over they have not only repaired the 3km boardwalks, but extended the trails within the reserve. 

Tommy Bryson, one of the countryside rangers here, is rightly proud of what they have done and what the Marshes offer: “This is one of the biggest restored floodplain projects in the UK and quite a pioneering example of rewilding. Golden eagles are back in this part of Scotland, but you are more likely here to see an osprey, red squirrel, deer, or even an elusive pine marten.” The other part-time ranger is Mitchell Hobbs, who started here when he was 18, showing the EYCDC’s commitment to bringing on young people and giving them opportunities.

The Ettrick Marshes are a special oasis. Tommy talks of the brace of bird hides and the unspoilt sense of the place, which feels properly wild. Vicky in turn tells me about her mother who loves a wee walk here at the tender age of 93-years-old. It’s a hard place not to love, when you can pluck blaeberries in autumn and lose yourself in nature at any time of year. There are even ranger-led walks that tap birch trees for sap or offer wood sorrell tea brewed in hidden shelters within the forest. It’s also home to one of the UKs rarest moths, found only in the Ettrick Marshes.

It is not the only walk the EYCDC have been involved in. The ‘Ring of the Loch’ is a superb seven mile walking route that makes use of a section of the Southern Upland Way on one side of St. Mary’s Loch, then loops pleasingly back around again the loch again, taking in the loch’s shores, drover roads and woodland. This Project was the Development Company’s first significant project, a real attraction in the Yarrow Valley. The walk was officially opened in August 2015 and has proved to be a massive success.

Ideal Road Biking Country

Cycling is also popular and the quiet local roads are ideal for road biking, with lots of cyclists coming through. The EYCDC stress that their seven E-bikes are hybrid with front suspension, which are ideal for taking on the gravel tracks that swoop around the local gravel trails. You can cycle over the hills to St Mary’s Loch, tackle the two hills valley loop (with pit stops at the valley pubs) or speed down to Eskdalemuir to the café and the stunning Buddhist Temple.

Temporay Locals Welcome!

The ECYDC are clearly very keen to attract SCOTO ‘temporary locals’ and also more permanent residents, as their purchase of a 2.06 hectare site from Buccleuch Estates shows. The £2 million Kirkhope Steading Project has created five affordable houses out of an old farm, all sustainably powered homes. They already house young families with the first baby born this year!  There are seven business units too and a hot desking space whch can be used by visitors on 'workcations'.

Vicky is delighted – “With this housing and increased positivity in the community our demographics have improved. As well as retirees and second home owners we’re now retaining our young people while also attracting families and people of working age. We as a community have looked at our problems and tackled them head on. And we’re seeing results too, which benefits both people living here and ‘temporary locals’ looking to engage with us.”

https://ettrickandyarrow.org.uk 

https://www.facebook.com/EYCDCo