A wee while back,well, 1980 , I had a lettered discussion with a man called David Breeze, at the RCAHMS,about a Roman Road running up this valley.I put forward my hunches and evidence on the ground, only for him to say "we're"" not interested in the roads.I persisted eventually getting a terse reply that he'd looked on an old map and that the road was probably an old drove road.I retorted "how many drove roads are cut through rock to maintain a level surface?"But,to no avail.The road in question can still be seen on this shot.Just left of centre,just above the handrail,near to the top of the brae,on the left hand side of the ravine,can be seen a green strip climbing steeply,then levelling off, before disappearing from sight.Roman Roads did tend to run up a valley until they had to zigzag up the end of the valley.NB:All the coach roads ran to the south of the cottage at the head of the pass.From a few hundred feet up the hill on the rhs,it sticks out like a sore thumb.The road then ran on to Tibbie Shiels,then cuts to the south of the loch,then climbs over Sundhope,then down to Ettrickbridge and on to Newstead.I stress this is conjecture,based upon local knowledge and no-one has ever supported my notion,or conversely, dismissed it.ADDENDUM :iN 2013, I visited Traquair House, near Peebles.There ,is a map showing a coach road on the line of "my" Roman road -shock horror-but this ,to me,simply confirms the line of the road.Where it approaches Ettrick,is a comment that "the old road over the hills to St. Mary's loch".Now that was written in 1600,very few roads were in existance in the South of Scotland and would not have been seen as "old".