Lamberton Skerrs

It turns out that there is somewhere to park much closer to Lamberton Skerrs. There is a dedicated car park for Undercliffe Nature Reserve which we spotted on the walk and I have detailed this at the end of the post. There seems to be no information online as to when the car park opens and it appears to be gated, so I can't comment on whether you can use this car park at all times. It might be worth a try though unless you fancy an 18km walk!

The walk is beautiful though and when you finally catch a glimpse of the building close to the edge of the coast, it makes the pain in your knees all worthwhile. You can see exactly why this location would have been chosen for it's illicit purposes, as it is not an easy walk down to the bothy and would have been tricky for authorities to monitor what was going on.

The name Lamberton Skerrs actually refers to the caves that are in this area and the building is simply known as 'the bothy'. The bothy was built by local merchant and smuggler John Robertson in 1760 and was originally used to store smuggled tea. The tea smuggling operation made the Robertson family very wealthy and their riches meant they were able to purchase Gunsgreen House in Eyemouth in 1789. This impressive building with specially adapted cellars and 'tea chutes' still stands to this day and saw lots of smuggling activity in the 18th century.

The bothy was later used as a fishery cottage, and there is a rusty net winch on the beach which was used in the operation which you can walk down to. There are some caves in the rocks on the beach which were also used in the fishing business as storage, however, there is not much more that remains.

The bothy itself was set alight by vandals at some point and is in a very ruinous state now, with nettles growing through the middle of it. However, it's still a fascinating place to visit with a lot of history, and the scenery around here is absolutely stunning. The sign down to the bothy also says 'Peregrine Falcons', which would be very exciting to see too, though we weren't lucky on the particular day we visited. We did see a Slow Worm for the first time though, which was pretty cool if you like reptiles! A fab place and if you visit, you've definitely earned those 5 sweet points for the leader board.