A walk through 4000 years during a circuit of Mendick Hill.
We passed two large Bronze Age chambers on the moorland track and when the nearby West Water Reservoir was low in 1997, stones from a burial site were excavated and relocated next to the farm road at the edge of West Linton golf course. The burial chambers contained the remains of early farming people and children who lived on the edge of the Pentland Hills about 4000 years ago.  Cists revealed much about the people of the time with one containing a child who appeared to be sleeping on a bed of meadowsweet and holding a two strand necklace with 181 cannel coal beads and 31 lead beads which represent the earliest known use of lead in Britain.  Other finds in the cists were decorated pottery vessels, stone tools and a bronze awl for making holes in leather, all of which are now in the museum in Edinburgh. 
The reconstructed site is beside a Roman road which was built about 2000 years ago linking the garrisons of Biggar and Elginhaugh (Dalkeith) guarding the crossing of the North Esk near Edinburgh and evidence of a large marching camp has been found half a kilometre away.
The site must have been very busy during a large part of the previous 500 years as it is at the intersection with the Cross Border Drove Road when up to 100,000 cattle and sheep passed by after crossing the Pentland Hills.  From the 16th to the mid 19th century cattle which had been bred in the Highlands and Islands were taken along drove roads from the markets in Falkirk and Crieff to markets south of the border or even to London.  Each drove could have between 100 and 1,000 cattle.  Individual drovers and their dogs might look after 50-60 cattle, walking 10-12 miles every day for weeks and sleeping beside their cattle to guard them overnight, wrapped only in their plaids and surviving on not much more than a few handfuls of oatmeal.
We crossed the 400 year old bridge which was built in 1620 carrying the road from Biggar to Edinburgh and passed the Sandynick toll house built over 200 years ago in 1802 as part of the turnpike road which was then replaced in 1834 by the A702 to the east.
More recent development has been the construction of the West Water reservoir and a golf course and horse stables – signs of opportunities to have better facilities and increased leisure opportunities.   Once the tracks would have been very busy but today we passed only 6 people on the circuitous route 14 km (9 mile) walk between West Linton and the bleak moorland Drover track to Garvald and back mostly along the route of the Roman road.  It was a good walk with plenty of variety and quite pleasant weather.