It is possible that the actual route taken would have entailed one day's march, over a route likely chosen to avoid the Red Moss, a virtually uncrossable bog near the present day village of Netherley.
Cowton Burn is a stream that rises in the Mounth, or eastern range of the Grampian Mountains, on some of the northwest slopes of the Durris Forest west of Netherley, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Alexander Silver, a wealthy East India trader, built Netherley House, a mansion house in Netherley in the late 18th century; he and his son George Silver were noted agricultural innovators of their era.