Loch Awe 3 - Kilchurn Castle

Kilchurn Castle is the most famous view on the shores of Loch Awe as it is usually the subject of Scottish scenic calendars.
The castle which is now situated on a peninsula was once located on its own island until 1817 when the water level was slightly lowered due to the exits of the Loch being tampered with. It is thought that it was joined by an underwater causeway.
The car park wasn't signposted and I back tracked a few times to find a road exit on the Loch side. The walk to the castle wasn't a short one and included going under the Glasgow - Oban railway. The reason I included the bridge photo (below) apart from demonstrating the low cloud, was to mention that I have seen this castle on numerous occasions from the train when I followed the class 37 diesels when they worked these lines up to 1989. These days my visits to these parts are by an extremely long day charter train and are less frequent ( bi annual May bank holiday ... including this year, Oban blog label ). The Castle is quite difficult to photograph as the train moves at speed with a mix of numerous tree obstructions and photographers fighting for a window space !!

On approaching the castle, it seems more eerie to me than the magical calendar view that I am used to...

 ...the atmosphere is definitely not helped by the dark and looming clouds of the day....

Kilchurn Castle was built in the 15th century by Colin Campbell and was originally meant to be a five storey tower. Improvements, additions and repairs were carried out over the next 2 centuries which included the facility for housing 200 soldiers. The round stone structure in the centre of the photo (above) was originally part up the upstairs masonry that was struck by lightning in 1760 and landed upside down. The castle was damaged by the constant raids of the MacGregors on the Campbells and was finally abandoned during the 18th century.
One thing I did think needed to be abandoned today was this French Horn player. It was a great idea to play in an ancient castle but maybe not to play a few random notes then constantly move around the building looking for the seemingly unachievable location.

It was time to go higher in search of the views and architecture. The Loch Awe hotel I spoke about in the previous post is shown through a window...

As a castle, the walls would have been difficult to scale and in similar historical circumstances to predators falling from the walls in defeat from the defenders, so I half expected this German traveller with less than appropriate footwear to follow in the rich tradition of the place. The lengths people go to to plan their escape to avoid a history lesson !

Loch Awe 2 - St Conan's Kirk

St Conan's Kirk is an inconspicuous church that stands partially hidden in the trees adjacent to the A85  Tyndrum to Oban road on the banks of Loch Awe.
After my short somewhat disappointing and cynical excursion to the underground Ben Cruachan Power Station, I was returning to the most famous landmark beside Loch Awe when my attention was drawn to an old tower through the trees. I had to make a split second decision to stop as I was travelling at too fast a speed to pull over the road into the small car park. I couldn't make up my mind in time and passed a tight vacant car parking space. As there was a car behind me and with no place to stop, I had to continue on to the village of Loch Awe to turn around.
As an aside, I am aware that Churches and Cathedrals are places of worship followed by architectural interest and then general tourism. However I was glad on this particular occasion that I reversed that order because when you have seen as many magnificent structures that I have, some of these glorious buildings begin to look similar to each other. I made the decision to return and park the car as this was one of the most amazing surprises that I have come across in a long time.
The area around this vicinity once was uninhabited due to the lack of roads in the area ( you may remember the road constructed above the water in the last post). Once the Oban railway was constructed ( an engineering achievement in its day), it was decided that a Hotel should be built and Walter Douglas Campbell built a large house nearby for his Mother, sister Helen and himself. As an architect and builder, he built a simple church for his mother to attend on this site as it was too far to travel to Dalmally. He wasn't happy with the building that took five years to build and complete in 1886. He set about on a more grand project that started in 1907, but the slow labour of love that included locally resourced stone from the nearby hillside, rolled down the hill, split and shaped on site took its toll. He died in 1914 and the work was continued by his sister Helen who subsequently died in 1927. The trustees finally finished the project in 1930.
Walter Campbell had an unorthodox approach using styles from as many different generations of architecture that he could possibly use to create a hybrid building of great beauty.



Parts of the building were re-cycled from a variety of other structures, Inchinnan church, A bell from Skerryvore lighthouse, some stones from Iona for the south aisle, chairs from Edinburgh and Venice  and oak beams ........ from the battleships The Caledonia and The Duke of Wellington. Wood from these ships was used in the making of doors and some of the main roofwork..........

 I was firstly struck on entering the building by the amount of light coming through the roof windows ( the man's a genius) and the unusual exposed walkway behind the simple communion table (yeah right... it was hand carved from a piece of solid oak wood that weighed 35 tonne). It is thought that the main chancel design was based on St John's Chapel in the Tower of London with the addition of natural sky and back light. After a walk around the Ambulatory curve and into St Fillan's aisle.......

.... it was time to wander outside into the cloister and explore the majestic exterior....

I was beginning to see the mixture of styles as well as a lot of potential for staying here for a bit longer with the camera. The door at a height to the right (below) was the original entrance to the bellows of an old pipe organ ..........

 .... accessed by some interesting stairs ....

Returning into the main building again, there was still the rear of the Kirk to explore via the back door to the back drop of Loch Awe which is why the location was chosen in the first place. It is said that Mr Campbell was so much of a perfectionist that he pulled the sundial down on numerous occasions until he was happy with the result on the eighth attempt. Shame it was no use to me today ...although I could catch the reflection of it due to the rain !!

The rear of the building is the ultimate in the architectural fusion which would need a whole album to demonstrate fully the unusual flying buttresses doubling as rainwater aqueducts. The saxon tower and strange anatomy will have to suffice for this photo.

On the roof there were three lead Gargoyles, one dog chasing two hares ! On a day like today it would be rude to show something coming from the hares mouth so I waited for my moment .... you know I was only keeping dry inside....

I am sure he could have taken a lesson from these silent creatures sheltering from the weather !!

Tyndrum & Loch Awe 1- Ben Cruachan Power station

My biggest concern that I had about this trip, for a few months beforehand, was what do I do if the weather is not suitable for hillwalking...... Today was that day!.... as the cloud base was low and the weather forecast for the afternoon was bad.
The weather forecast looked good for the following two days so I needed to take it easy in preparation for that. The natural destination would have been to visit Oban but I had been there just a few months ago by train (see Oban label)... incidentally you can see the railway line in the above picture on the left.
The loose plan I had started at the Green Welly stop in Tyndrum. This place can only be described as being professional in giving the tourist a complete service. I can't decide how this business grew but I get the feeling that it must have started life as a petrol station.

The premises are ideally located for such a business near a major road junction that take traffic to Oban and the Isles in the west, Glencoe and Fort William in the north west and Loch Lomond / Glasgow or the Trossachs / Stirling in the south and east. The petrol station shop has grown into the usual mini mart that looked after me for post dinner treats and a sandwich for lunch time today. From my description of the location, you can gather that it has to be run like a professional organisation accepting 100's if not 1000's of people everyday. The car park was just as professional...

The main part of the shop deals with the need of the tourist to eat food, have a toilet break and to buy souvenirs for people you don't like !!!..........

Seriously though, there were some good things for purchase, but on the second day of my trip,  I wasn't quite looking for that kind of thing just yet.
When I spent some time in these parts on holiday with my parents as an early teenager, I often asked if we could go to the "Hollow Mountain". Unfortunately, they didn't share my enthusiasm and consequently I never went. As it was only 30 minutes drive, I thought it would be an ideal choice for the day out of the rain. I travelled along the shores of Loch Awe heading in the Oban direction to the Ben Cruachan Hydro electric power station.....

During the morning, I learned that the small site was artificially created from the rocks excavated from the four reservoir pipe shafts when the power station was built. The work took 6 years to complete in the 1950's/60's and provides Scotland with a small amount of hydro electric power at peak times. The reservoir is unseen from the road and the pipes are angled at 55 degrees to create the momentum of water to drive the generators.
To give you a feeling of the space available at the bottom of the mountain, the main road that passes the car park going to Oban was a major building achievement as it was created with no artificial base......

The small visitor centre consisted of a shop, cafe, electricity exhibition and a video presentation. There were two minibuses that took visitors to see the generators and as there was only one space to park it underground the 30 minute trip for £6 had to be on schedule. The lasting experience that I gained from the bus trip was not the long dark tunnel ( just felt like travelling at night time), nor was it the hewn out tunnels in the style of early James Bond sets with tropical plants beside the walkway or the 1960's engineering, but the amount of facts that my head was pounded within the period. There wasn't enough time to talk about it all at the small viewing platform that we were taken to, so we had a full commentary on both sections of the bus journey.
 I was however disappointed to learn that we weren't allowed to take in cameras or bags, so these had to be left in the lockers provided. This the last view before the trip......

check out this Cruachan guided tour link for a view of tunnel and walkway/plans and google images has a photo of the yellow generators we saw.
  I had to content myself with photographs in the exhibition of how electricity works.....

.... and how to cook a turkey in the microwave !!!!.......

My window shopping experience continued a theme that I left off in Tyndrum with items that the Scottish locals would be embarrassed about.....

Time for my lunch time sandwich outside the building next to the Loch overlooking a Trout fish farm that supplies Marks and Spencers and Tesco ( I'm told). After lunch it was time for something a bit more interesting, but first one more thought from The Green Welly shop ...

Dunoon - North East Railtours

Today was never about a railtour but nautical nostalgia when I spent teenage school holidays watching a trio of boats. This particular boat ( MV Jupiter) is the only one left in regular service as the Saturn works a relief summer service to Rothesay and the Juno no longer has a passenger certificate. Interestingly enough, today's boat trip was originally meant to be going to Rothesay, on possibly the Saturn, but the Northern Belle train stole the all day slot in Weymss Bay (Rothesay departure point) forcing the NER organiser to re-arrange another destination at seven days notice. This was Calmac's premier route from Gourock to Dunoon.

Departing from Gourock with a porthole view

Lifeline .... to escape people I was placed next to on the train. ( Some of these trips have seat vacancies  and one of the problems of solo travelling is the people you are thrown together with. One had repetitive conversation & the other .... I still have no idea what they were talking about !!)

The re-routing of the trip gave me the opportunity to view, via zoom lens, the large house (in the trees with the turret on the left) where I stayed in Kilcreggan.

The Firth of Clyde is rather different to what people expect who have never had the opportunity to see it. The view north is to Loch Long and the Arrochar Alps.

...while to the south is the lighthouse at Cloch point through a ship porthole. This particular picture was quite difficult to take as I had to stand well back from the hole to gain maximum zoom of the lighthouse. I had a few staring passengers unable to understand what I was photographing !

On arrival at Dunoon, the sight of greeting was the Castle which houses a museum and was the scene of a wedding today.

Behind the castle, there was a good view south down the west side of the Firth of Clyde.

Highland Mary keeps a watchful eye on the Firth but unfortunately not looking after herself as she wasn't wearing a hat !!

Dunoon Mugs

The shopping centre in Dunoon is nothing to write home about, but ever the eager eye looking for a photo opportunity..... had to resort for something in a mug shop.

Policing the view for a few chips

Dunoon Pier

All too soon, it was time to return from the solitude of the park and return to the MV Jupiter for my very last trip on it and the verbal torture on the train at Gourock.