Innerwick | Revisiting the past

The County Planning Department’s Handbook (1967 p4) provides an update of what is now known about Innerwick’s earliest settlers

‘The first evidence…of man’s activities in the county comes from the coast where small nomadic groups of Neolithic folk wandered collecting shellfish and hunting. With larger and more sophisticated tools, people gradually moved inland….a wild wooded country populated by wild boar, wolves, elk, ox and wildcat.

Later, more permanent Iron Age settlements were established but, in the cultivated lowlands, most of the evidence of these has long since been ploughed out, and only in the hills will you find the signs of hill forts and hut circles.

There are the remains of more than twelve of these ancient forts strung out along the edge of the Lammermuirs commanding a fine view of the surrounding hills. The nearest is on Blackcastle Hill…’.