more dereliction

Fiona and I enjoyed a lovely walk today over in Annandale. It was mainly on very quiet roads, lined with beautiful beech trees just coming into leaf. Some of the walk coincided with the route of the Annandale Way which runs from Annan to Moffat.

We started at the ruined church of St Mungo, where there were some really interesting graves, and walked to Milkbank House, which you can see in the main photo (we ate our lunch here - see extra).

Milkbank was built in 1895 by architect Frank James Chambers Carruthers for William Ogle, who retired here and was a JP in Dumfries. After WW2 the building was de-roofed and left for nature to invade, which it has done very successfully - there are mature trees growing in some of the rooms. Recently, wire fencing has been put up around the house as a safety measure, which is a shame because we would have liked to explore the inside. Here is someone who did just that. We did go into the nearby Milkbank Kennels, which looked as though it had been deserted more recently. I took lots of photos which are on my FB page as there isn't room for them here.

Very lucky with the weather! We had expected to get thoroughly wet but the rain only started when we reached the car. An excellent outing!

Today's Walk : Milkbank with Fiona 5.6 miles