What Were Drovers' Roads?

Before railways, before metalled highways, the movement of livestock across Scotland depended on feet, hooves and the patience of men who knew every bog, ford and hill pass between the Highlands and the markets of the south. These were the drovers, and the routes they followed are known collectively as drovers' roads. They were not roads in the modern sense — no tarmac, no signage, often no more than a broad, worn track threading through glens and over moorland. Yet they shaped the landscape in ways you can still see today, from wide grassy verges to the ruins of old inns that once served men and beasts alike.

Cattle were the currency of the Highland economy for centuries. Black cattle from the Western Isles and the glens were walked south in their thousands, destined for markets at Crieff, Falkirk and ultimately the English border and the growing cities of the south. A single drove might number two hundred beasts or more, tended by a handful of drovers and their dogs.

The Routes and the Landscape They Left Behind

Droving was dictated by geography. Cattle needed grazing, water and firm ground, so the routes favoured the natural corridors: the passes through the hills, the old military roads where they could be used, and the lowland straths that led towards the market towns. The great drove routes ran from the north and west down through Perthshire, across the Forth and towards Falkirk, then on through the Southern Uplands towards Carlisle and beyond.

What the drovers left behind is subtle but unmistakable. Look for tracks that are unusually wide — often twenty to thirty feet across — with a strip of close-cropped turf down the middle where countless hooves passed. The verges beside them were deliberately left ungrazed, providing a larder of grass for cattle on the move. You will also find the place names: Drove Road, Drovers' Loan, Cattle Loan and Beast Wynd appear on maps the length of the country, marking routes that predate the Ordnance Survey by centuries.

Stance, Stells and the Inn Trade

A day's droving covered roughly ten to twelve miles, which dictated where everyone stopped for the night. The overnight grazing grounds were known as stances, and many survive as broad, flat fields on the edge of towns — often now sports pitches or car parks, their usefulness long outliving their original purpose.

On higher ground, you will still find stells: circular drystone enclosures, usually with a gap for a gate, built to hold sheep or cattle overnight. They are often mistaken for old sheepfolds, and that is essentially what many became, but the earliest examples served the droving trade. Beside the routes stood inns, and their names give the game away — the Drovers' Inn, the Highlandman, the Stag. These were working establishments, not genteel hostelries. A drover needed somewhere to sleep, food, a stabling arrangement for tired beasts and, crucially, somewhere to settle accounts. Credit and cash both moved along the droving routes, and an innkeeper's word was often as good as a bank's.

Walking a Drovers' Road Today

The good news for walkers is that many of these routes remain open, waymarked or simply available as rights of way. They offer long, relatively low-level days with steady gradients, and because they follow historical corridors, they often link settlements with places to eat and stay.

• Choose a section, not the whole route. The full drove from Skye to Falkirk is a long-distance undertaking. A day or two on a well-documented stretch is far more rewarding than biting off too much.
• Expect bog. Even established tracks can be soft underfoot after rain. Waterproof boots and gaiters are not optional between October and April.
• Carry cash and book ahead. Some of the best stops are small village pubs and bunkhouses with limited capacity and patchy signal.
• Read the ground. A wide, grassy track with old walls running alongside it is almost certainly a drove road. Look for ruined stells on the skyline.
• Check access. Much of Scotland's countryside is open under access legislation, but stalking, lambing and farm work take precedence. Signs and gates should be respected.

Routes worth researching include the old drove roads through the Cairngorms around Glen Feshie and the Tromie, the tracks across the Ochils and the Southern Uplands, and the well-trodden corridors of Perthshire around Crieff, once the greatest cattle market in Scotland.

Why It Still Matters

The drovers' roads are a reminder that Scotland's landscape is a working landscape, shaped by trade as much as by geology. The wide verges, the stances under housing estates, the lonely stells on hillsides and the inns that still pull a pint are all evidence of an industry that moved on foot for centuries and vanished within a few decades of the railways arriving.

Walking them is a practical way to connect with that history. You are following a route chosen for the needs of cattle, not the convenience of cars, and that is precisely what makes them such good walking. Take a map, take your time, and look at the ground beneath your feet — the width of the track tells you who came before.