The Dukes Monument Trail

Hiking With Kids



The Dukes Monument Trail is one of the walks that can be done in the Chatelherault Country Park. The walk itself can  be completed in a couple of hours, and provides a nice visit to the monument, which is situated at the edge of the park, near a housing estate.
Map


Getting There

Chatelherault country park is situated just on the outskirts of Hamilton. It can be reached by train, the station is opposite the park entrance. If driving, head on the M74 south from Glasgow taking the Hamiltion turnoff. Once off the motorway take a left at the next two roundabouts and continue on the A72 towards Ferniegair. The park is a couple of miles outside of Hamilton. 

Facilities 

The park has a information centre, toilets, cafe and small shop. This is an ideal time to come with the family. There is a play park at the car park which will. happily keeps the children busy. 

The Walk

There are a range of walks that can be done, of varying length. We were interested to see what the monument was like, thinking it would be a stone statue. The walk starts from the information centre where you walk down to the Dukes bridge, there are excellent views of the river. 

From there we walked up past the Cadzow castle, or what is left of it. The walk continues up to a gate where there us a field which belongs to a private property. We took a right and followed a track next to the field, into the forest. The forest walk continues for about a mile or so until you  reach a road, which is the access road to the private property. The forest track can be muddy so ensure to wear wellies or hiking boots. 

From there we took a right and walked down the road past other expensive looking houses. We had just about given up on the monument when we found it, tucked just off the road to the right. 
The walk back was another matter. We continued to follow the road down and this lead us past a small housing estate. We took a right turn into the estate and managed to find a path the lead between two houses back out onto the main road. We were about a two miles from the country park and our car. Even though this part of the walk was straight and had no muddy track it still took a lot to convince the tired children to keep walking. In the end,  they did enjoy spending time exploring the monument.

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