If you have ever looked at an ordnance survey map of the Berwickshire coast you might have spotted that the National Trust for Scotland actually owns more than St Abb's Head. We also own a stretch of coastal slope to the south of Fast Castle and an area of farmland adjacent to the Rangers' Office. I will explain about the farmland in a later post, but today we went to check the boundary fence of the Lumsdaine strip, as we call it, the length of coastal grassland which runs from Dowlaw Dean near Fast Casle to Westerside Dean near Coldingham Loch. The steep sloping grassland might not be an attractive proposition for farming, but supports nationally and internationally important maritime flora and breeding seabirds not to mention being a spectacular landscape (picture left, Lumsdaine Shore). 
It is a fanatsic length of coastline, liberally scattered with hillforts and other archaeological remains, and somewhere where you can really get the feeling of being a million miles from anywhere even though you're not. The Berwickshire Coast Path runs the whole length between St Abb's Head and Fast Castle so it is well signed, why not check it out sometime? Here's a picture (right) of Georgia, Laura and Ernie, a long term volunteer of ours, having elevensies at the hill fort at Tun Law.
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