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After travelling to Glasgow, we set off from Milngavie (pronounced Mill Guy) a suburb to the North of Glasgow and the official start of the West Highland Way. The West Highland Way travels northwards from Glasgow to Fort William along footpaths that in turn have been super-imposed upon paths, old tracks, military roads, cattle droving trails, and now defunct railways. As one proceeds northwards one move from rolling undulating agricultural lands through to ever higher and rougher mountain heaths on which sheep and shaggy Scottish cattle graze. In addition, one moves through a whole spectrum of different geological settings, from fairly recent sandstones through, slates and quartzites, to thoroughly metamorphosed schists and gneisses, culminating in a riot of weathered granites and the might of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain of Great Britain. Ben Nevis, is the sad remnant of a volcano that collapsed upon itself about 350 million years ago and forms part of a heavily eroded mountain range that once soared high in the skies of the super-continent Pangea. At that stage the Central Pangean Mountains, linked the Appalachians in North America with parts of Greenland and the highlands of Scotland before they were torn asunder by plate tectonics.
Almost exactly 8 kilometres beyond the starting point in Milngavie the summit of Dumgoyach rises up starkly out of the terrain. Thickly wooded and seemingly impenetrable Dumgoyach forms the weathered remains of a volcanic plug. Immediately afterwards one begins walking along the bed of a now defunct railway line, opened in 1867 and decommissioned in 1959, that led northwards to Aberfoyle. After a fair slog along terrain that consists largely of sandstone, which forms the basis for many of the houses that one passes, one begins climbing and sees the remains of a stone quarry about 2 kilometres before one gets to Drymen and the end of the first stage of the West Highland Way.
The following day is a long slog along the allegedly bonny banks of Loch Lomond. This Loch as with most lochs of Scotland is a reflection of the enormous geological structures that form and frame Scotland. This route was hard going as we kept scrambling up incline of vertically tilted beddings of sandstones, slates and quartzites, and then back down to the level of the lake. Rowardennan Hotel was a welcome rest. The day after was another long slog along the loch until we climbed a neck at the north end of the Loch and ended at Beinglas Farm on the River Falloch. At this stage we entered the highlands proper and started seeing more and more blocks of heavily metamorphosed schists.
The push past Grianlarich on sections of what had been the King’s Way and the Old Military Road underscores the original function of the West Highland Way as a route of strategic importance with which England could reenforce its garrisons in Scotland and strengthen its control over the subjugated country, particularly after the battle of Culloden in 1746. It was after this defeat that the original clan structures of Scotland, which had previously determined the law and allocated land access in the highlands were abolished in favour of direct administration from London. Henceforth Scotland became a colonised country, its political, economic and cultural institutions relegated, at best, to a secondary position if not banned outright. For example, the wearing of Tartan was banned for Scots. In the years that followed, Scotland would suffer further infamy when the small farmers that had eked a living in the hills were driven off the land on the orders of the new owners of the land in favour of the extensive grazing of sheep for wool and the ever-burgeoning wool industry of the industrialising British midlands.
Approaching the village of Tyndrum one suddenly comes upon signs warning of “Mining Trucks”, these refer to the only Gold Mine in Scotland, Cononish Gold Mine which is currently not in production but of which the holding company “Scotgold” is still on the London Stock Exchange, but trading in its shares has been suspended. BBC: Owners issue warning over future of Scotland's only gold mine & BBC: Extraction from Scotland's only gold mine ramped up . A glance at the website, which now unfortunately has been taken offline, reflects the gold industry in a nutshell with company officials from South Africa, Australia and the United States of America. Scotgold Reserves & Scotgold Reserves Ltd Facebook. Consequently the company has two non-executive Directors with names that are almost a parody of sterieotypes; William “Bill” Stylslinger III and Nathaniel Le Roux. Scotgold Resources
Further along, just before Tyndrum, one crosses a literal deadzone. It is the site of where refined lead ore from the mine was transported to before being entrained for further treatment. In the present, this zone, which is about the size of a football field is completely barren and bereft of any growing thing. A series of impromptu three to six stone cairns have been erected in the area, but it is doubtful that the countless thousands of hikers who cross the site annually realise that they are walking through the remnants of a heavily contaminated zone.
Overlooking Tyndrum is a hillside that has been torn open over the course of two hundred years of mining for lead. At the foot of the hill a string of houses, now converted into fine highland cottages, were the residences of mineworkers who slogged up the hill and its stopes.
A number of sites describe the mines:
Northern Mine Research Society: Tyndrum Mine & Northern Mine Research Society: British Mining No 99 - The Leading Mines of Tyndrum
But, particularly interesting to watch are two YouTube films produced by the Scottish poet and artist, Dougie MacLean, whose great grandfather worked at the mine till his early death at the age of 47, probably due to lead poisoning. Tyndrum Mine Part 1 & Tyndrum Mine Part .
That lead poisoning has a direct and lasting effect on the environment in Tyndrum is indicated in a host of scientific publications and ongoing research, of which the most salient is that being carried out by the University of Stirling. University of Stirling: The Lead Legacy
Some of the research results relating specifically to Tyndrum have been made available online via ResearchGate: The lead legacy The relationship between historical mining pollution and the post mining landscape - Mills et al.
In the present the coco-pans that once transported lead ore, are now used as flower boxes and convenient advertisements for a Bed and Breakfast accommodation in the town.
Heading North along the Military Road we reach the Bridge of Orchy and the Inveroran Hotel. The hotel was established in 1706 to facilitate the Cattle Drovers driving cattle down from the islands and highlands of Scotland to the midlands of Britain and the ever burgeoning cities that were beginning to emerge as industrialisation and urbanisation got into its stride. How fascinating it would have been for anthropologists to sit and listen to the stories that these drovers would have told, their accents, their ways of seeing and understanding the world. Passing Black Mount one now enters landscape that seems to have lifted directly from the Middle Earth of Tolkien. As one crosses Rannoch Moor, one passes Drochaid Doire Mhic Laimh, Coire Creagach, Meal Beag, Lochan Mhic Pheadair Ruaidh and other equally exquisitely named landmarks. As one walks one moves through layers and layers of quartzites and sandstones before striking slowly cooled pink granite basement with large crystals embedded in it.
Suddenly we had crossed the solitude of Rannoch Moor and literally stumbled upon the asphalt road leading to the ski-resort of Glencoe and the A82 Motorway heading North. Thankfully we did not have to plod along the A82 for too long before ending up in the Kings House hotel. A splurge of extravagant over-heated luxury in the midst of the immense natural beauty of the Scottish Highlands.
On the following morning we set off from Kings House hotel to the settlement of Kinlochleven along the King’s Road and via the ominously named “Devil’s Stairway”. As we set off from the Kings House hotel we felt as if we were Hobbits on a quest and that “Mount Doom” lay ahead of us.
After another horrible stretch along the A82 with cars, coaches and motor-cycles whizzing by we reached the foot of the Devil’s Staircase, the name of which was far more daunting than the climb itself was.
Crossing the pass we passed back into the solitude of the Highlands. To our right we could see Blackwater Dam, the water of which was used to power aluminium smelters in Kinlochleven. About 500 metres from the foot of the dam wall a graveyard can be found containing the concrete grave-markers of men killed during the construction of the dam in 1908. Particularly poignant is a grave that does not bear a name but the inscription “Not Known”. These graves reminded me of the endless unnamed graves of the Great War. In a sense the Navvies who died in the construction were considered to be superfluous to the needs of the new industrial society that was booming triumphant. A plaque erected in the 2000s states, “Another stone bears the word Unknown, a reminder that these folk were the misfits of the day, itinerant workers who know no home or family”. One of those misfits who worked on the Blackwater Dam was Patrick MacGill who described his experiences in Children of the Dead End, an autobiographical novel published in 1914. MacGill not only gives flesh and bone to these so-called “misfits”, but also gives them personalities, families and histories, and shows that they were real people with feelings trying to survive in an economic setting that was largely uncaring for those unfortunate enough to have nothing but their labour to survive on.
Striking in the walk towards Kinlochleven was the evidence all around of the last Ice Age. The high hanging valleys gauged out in U-form by the glaciers that once covered these mountains 10-12000 years ago. The vertical bedding of extremely hard-wearing quartzites literally sliced off, or transformed into striated pavements that lie at the surface or just below a small layer of humus and vegetation.
The last five kilometres into Kinlochleven follow along the enormous water-pipes that lead the water from the Blackwater Dam to the aluminium smelters that are now defunct. Having grown up in mining towns in southern Africa I realised at once that as we walked into Kinlochleven, that we had walked into a company town. Albeit that this was a town where the company had left and the centre was now in terminal decline. In 2000 the smelters had shut down, in their stead an ice-wall for climbing had been established in a vain attempt to keep some form of economic activity going in the town. Unfortunately for Kinlochleven, when we arrived in the town the ice-wall was shut down, yet another one of the many activities that had come to an end on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. On account of the shut-down the company “Ice Factor” which exploits the ice-wall and rents the facilities from the Kinlochleven Community Trust has been unable to pay its rent to the KCT. Effectively since Covid-19 the climbing wall has been shut down.
Sadly, it is not only the ice-wall that has shut down, “The Aluminium Story”, a public exhibition on the aluminium smelter of Kinlochleven and housed in one of the public utility buildings of the town has also been shut down indefinitely. A single supermarket continues to exist, whilst the local pub the “Antler Bar” has been boarded up.
But for anybody interested in company towns, Kinlochleven is a text book example. Row upon row of identical housing, varying in size and location depending on the level and status of employment in the company dominates and determines the layout of the town. Thus the Good Shepherd Catholic church faces the Kinlochleven Parish Church at the entrance to Kinlochmore the suburb of what were once the terrace houses occupied by employees of the company. The Kinlochleven Medical Centre, now part of the NHS, and the Kinlochleven High and Junior Schools lie between the river Leven and the suburb of Kinlochmore. Here, almost hidden from sight, is a small monument that commemorates the German Prisoners of War who were put to work in the aluminium smelter in World War One. On the other side of the river, and approximately a mile away from the smelter and the working areas of the settlement the houses of the former company managers are to be found.
We were fortunate in being housed in a B&B that had been established in what had once been the house of a manager of the Kinlochleven. Built in 1912, with beautiful inlaid wooden floors and a commanding view of the loch, the house Edencoille was a welcome respite from the gloom of the post-industrial blight that is Kinlochleven.
Climbing up from Kinlochleven one enters a high hanging U-shaped valley. All along one sees the impact of glaciers in the area until, as you approach Fort William, Ben Nevis, the highest mountain of Great Britain looms up ahead. After that it was a comparatively quick and easy 25 kilometre hike through to Fort William and its magnificent “Highland Bookshop”, truly one of the treats of the world.