Immediately to the east of Ardnamurchan Point lighthouse there's a hill - un-named on the OS map - on the summit of which stands this cairn. We've noticed it often enough before from the lighthouse side but never thought to climb up and have a look at it until a couple of weeks ago.
It's a very neatly built cairn, most of it formed of stones of roughly the same size. Like so many other hilltops, there aren't many loose stones lying around the site, so it may well be that this cairn was very deliberately constructed, perhaps by the men of the RAF who manned a nearby lookout point during the Second World War. A clue might come from someone who can give us an idea of how old the lichens are which are growing on the rocks towards the top of the cairn.
From the cairn there are views towards the lighthouse, with Coll along the left horizon....
....northeastwards towards Bay McNeil (on the right), Sanna Point and the Small Isles....
.....and southwards towards
Corrachadh Mor, with Mull and the Treshnish Isles beyond.
On the day we were there, a heavy Atlantic swell rolling in from the west was meeting a stiff southeasterly breeze, with some spectacular results.
The cairn to the East of the Lighthouse was not manned by the RAF. it was a Coastguard station .and was manned by three men 24 hours a day during the War
ReplyDeleteThe hill to the East of the Lighthouse is Croc Tarbh
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the name of the hill. The station I referred to,isn't the CG station, which is towards Portuairk, but another lookout which I 'm fairly sure was RAF, much nearer the lighthouse. Jon
ReplyDeleteThe wartime CG lookout was on top of Croc Tarbh, the RAF did not keep a watch from there, it was demolished after theWar, and a new station was built on Beinn Bheagh above Portuairk,but was mostly manned in bad weather ,when the watchkeeper had to report to Southend Kintyre. The RAF had their Nissan huts at Carraig near the Lighthouse.
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