NY5791 : Inscription, Old Toll Pillar, Bloody Bush
taken 11 years ago, 4 km ESE of Dinlabyre, Scottish Borders, Scotland

THE MARCH BETWEEN NORTHUMBERLAND AND ROXBURGHSHIRE
[left] Willowbog, the Property of Sir J.E. Swinburn Bart. Capheaton
[right] Dinlabyre, the Property of William Oliver Rutherford, Esqr.
Private Road upon which a Toll Gate is erected near Oakenshaw Bridge at which the following Toll rates are exacted, viz.:-
1st For horses employed in leading coals - 2d. each
2nd All other horses - 3d. do.
3rd Cattle - 1d. do.
4th Sheep, Calves, Swine - 1/2d. do.
The above tolls exacted once a day.
N.B.-Persons evading or refusing to pay at the above mentioned toll gate will be prosecuted for trespass.
DISTANCES FROM THIS PLACE BLOODY BUSH
To Lewisburn Colliery - 5 miles
Mounces - 8 do.
Bellingham - 23 do.
Hexham - 37 do.
Dinlabyre - 31/2 do.
Castleton - 71/2 do.
Hawick - 21 do.
Jedburgh - 25 do.
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 road was well surfaced in its later years, with good bridges on the eastern side Link
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.