Scotland - The Mounth passes
I’m spending some time in Royal Deeside these days exploring remnants of the ancient pinewoods of Scotland. As I do that I’ve been running into ancient routes called mounths. These routes tend to run in a north-south direction and in the early days of movement through the Dee valley, likely accounted for most of the traffic. The routes or passes as they are often called, traversed the line of hills running from Aberdeen in the east to Drumochter in the west. These passes linked the Grampian Mountains and specifically the Dee Valley to the southern markets for cattle, sheep, whisky and labour to bring in the harvests. The most common useage was probably as drove roads to drive cattle from the uplands to the lowlands. They would pass through markets in the Central Belt and eventually on to Carlisle and further south.
The name the Mounth seems to have originally applied to the eastern portion of the Grampian mountains and maybe also the part from Ballater to the north sea. The definition of the Grampians appears to be a bit fluid as can be seen here. Ramsey and Pederson seem to define the Mounth as that portion of the Cairngorms in Aberdeenshire and Angus.
These days “mounth” is usually used to describe a passage through the mountains rather than the mountain range itself, hence my interest.
The map below is taken from “The Mounth Passes: My journey on old roads in Speyside, Deeside and Atholl” by Graham Marr published in 2017. He has identified 16 passes that he considers pedestrian routes.
The 16 pedestrian passes he identifies from east to west are:
The Causey or Cowie Mounth - Aberdeen to Stonehaven
The Elsick Mounth - Drum to Stonehaven
The Cryne Corse Mounth - Durris to Glenbervie
The Stock Mounth - Strachan to Glenbervie
The Builg Mounth - Bridge of Bogendreip to Glenfarquhar
The Fungle or Birse Mounth - Aboyne to Tarfside, Glen Esk
The Fir Mounth - Dinnet to Tarfside, Glen Esk
The Mounth Keen - Ballater to Invermark, Glen Esk
The Capel Mounth - Glen Muick to Glen Clova
The Tolmounth - Glen Clunie to Glen Clova
The Monega pass - Glen Clunie to Glen Isla
The pass from Inverey to Glen Shee (un-named)
The Glen Tilt pass - Braemar to Blair Atholl
The Minigaig - Kingussie to Blair Atholl
The Gaick pass - Kingussie to Dalnacardoch
The Comyn’s Road - Kingussie to Blair Atholl
He also identifies four passes that are considered public roads:
The Slug Road - Banchory to Stonehaven
The Cairn O’ Mount - Banchory to Fettercairn
The Cairnwell - Braemar to Spittal of Glenshee
The Dromochter Pass - Kingussie to Blair Atholl
Other sources have listed three additional passes as follows:
Kilbo Path - Glen Clova to Glen Prosen - featured in The Mounth Passes by Neil Ramsay & Nate Pedersen
Lairig Ghru - Speyside to Glen Dee
Lairig an Laoigh - Strathspey to Glen Derry
The map below is from Nate Pederson. He co-wrote The Mounth Passes: A Heritage Guide to the Old Ways Through the Grampian Mountains. I bought his Kindle Book but couldn’t read the map. I contacted him on LinkedIn and he sent me that.
