Newcastleton is located 22 miles south of Hawick. This out and back trail follows forestry roads on a gradual ascent to the top of Lauriston Fell viewpoint. Giving you an uninterrupted view of the debatable lands of England and Scotland. The bloody Bush battle site is 50 yards beyond the impressive toll stone, which stands on the border line.
Old maps show a 'Site of Battle' at Bloody Bush. It was in fact more of a nasty skirmish (or 'sanguinary encounter', as James Logan Mack tells it) between Border Reivers. A party of english raiders had camped here overnight and were found and killed by Liddesdale men. The exact date is unknown but likely to have been in the C15th or 16th centuries.
The old road between Lewisburn in Tynedale and Dinlabyre in Liddesdale was a major thoroughfare between the two valleys. Until the coming of the trains in the 1860s, it was used to carry coal from collieries at Lewisburn and Plashetts to fuel the woollen mills of the Scottish Borders.
The Toll Pillar was set up by the two landowners in the 1830s and is a substantial structure some 15 feet high with an inscribed plaque on its north side.