FACTFILE

Distance: 4 miles

Time: 3 to 3½ hours

OS Landranger 66 and 67

Start / finish point: Tourist Information Centre, North Berwick

A steep hill with fantastic views, a quiet wooded glen and a beautiful sandy beach - what more could you want on a walk? An ice cream? Yes, plenty of that on offer as well.

North Berwick Law’s best known feature to any visitors of the seaside town below is a whale’s jawbone - first erected at the top in 1709. It remained there until 1935 when a replacement was needed after so much buffeting by the weather. However, that one didn’t last as long and in 2007 a replica whalebone was put in its place.

The walk to it starts and finishes at the Tourist Information Centre in Quality Street. Go down Kirk Ports (to the left of the information centre) and at its end go left to follow Law Road uphill. Go over a crossroads with traffic lights, past a sports centre and just after a primary school go down a minor road on the left, signed for “North Berwick Law car park & picnic site”.

The face of the Law looks daunting from here - all jumbled cliffs and rocky outcrops - but don’t worry, at the far end of the car park, beyond a gate, a path leads round the side to easier gradients.

When you reach a wall on the right take a path going up to the left signed “Path to summit”. After a steep section ignore a small path going up to the left (near a bench on the right) and continue around the Law to a marker post with a white arrow on it, where you go up and to the left. Go past a bench and follow the path round to the right. At another bench many will gasp at the sight of the Firth of Forth laid out in front. Go right from here, up a grass path. This forks but it doesn’t really matter which way you go as the whalebone arch comes into view pretty quickly and then it is simply a case of picking any one of a number of little paths threading their way to the top.

You can gaze all the way down the coast to St Abb’s Head with Tantallon Castle and Bass Rock closer to hand. Up the Firth of Forth lie the Ochil Hills, Arthur’s Seat and the Pentland Hills. Going round to the south the rolling Lammermuir Hills lead to the Borders with Traprain Law in the foreground.

Return to the marker post and go left, following a grass path round to the east side of the Law. Go through a rudimentary gate (looking left first to see beech trees planted in 1707 to commemorate the Union of Scotland and England) and follow a path with a fence to the right.

After a couple of hundred yards the path joins a track on the right which you follow to houses at Heugh. On reaching a road go left and follow it round to the left and down to a roundabout at the edge of North Berwick.

Cross the road to the right of the roundabout and a little further right follow a path into woodland. This is The Glen, a lovely wooded area with a bubbling stream which is a good contrast to the wide open expanse of hillside you have just crossed. After a few yards take path on the left, past an information board and across a footbridge. Go right on the other side and drop down by the side of the burn to another information board where you go left. The path leaves The Glen by the side of golf course and you then walk across a car park to reach a road with the beach of Milsey Bay on the other side. Go left to walk along the sands to the Scottish Seabird Centre, where you go left to pass in front of the lifeboat station and follow Victoria Road back to the start.