The worth of copper

The Whitadder

Spring is most definitely here. The arctic terns have returned from their sojourn in the Antarctic and the swallows are back from wintering in Africa. We think we are travellers!

It was time for the annual memorial walk for an old friend, six years gone. Her favourite walk was from the Whitadder river, across the suspension bridge, along the blackthorn-lined path to the accompaniment of chaffinch song, the piping of great tits and, if we are lucky, the cry of the yaffle, the green woodpecker, then up the steep slope to Edin's Hall Broch.

Blackthorn path

Edin's Hall broch

The broch is an archaeological oddity, situated far south of the broch-building areas of northern Scotland and, apparently, too big in area to have had very high walls.

It seems to date from the time between the two Roman occupations of Southern Scotland after 100 A.D. when Pax Romana meant that defence was less of a necessity. It sits within the remains of an earlier prehistoric fort and settlement.

There are copper mines on the banks of the Whitadder that were worked up until the eighteenth or even nineteenth centuries. A copper ingot was found within the broch so, in the Bronze and Iron Ages, the builders of the broch would have been rich from their local monopoly of a valuable commodity. Maybe the structure was the equivalent of the mansions of the nineteenth century coal-mine owners or the private jets to the estates of oil-barons, a display of wealth. 

Mine workings to be found in the banks of the river 

Tunnels for extracting the copper

Green coppery stone

A more demanding clamber was undertaken along the steep banks above the river to find the remains of the old workings then an easier walk back along the old pack-horse path finished off a great day's outing.

Wood anemones and dog violets above the mines

Gold is for the mistress - silver for the maid

Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade

Good said the Baron sitting in his hall

But Iron -Cold Iron - is the master of them all

R. Kipling

Dumyat

Dumyat

Dumyat or Dunmyat Dùn Mhèad in Gaelic, is a grand wee hill. Just on the edge of the Ochils, above Stirling. It is a "Marilyn", being only 1370 ft or so high but in spite of its lack of height, the views are superb.

There are two tops, Dumyat and Castle Law, the latter being the site of an old Iron Age fort that gave its name to the whole hill. Dun Meaetae, the fort of the Meatae, a Brythonic tribe or federation of tribes living just beyond the Antonine Wall in Roman Britain who caused a lot of trouble for the invaders until they were eventually bought off.

The Castle Law fort is just discernible with piles of stones that must be the remains of the ramparts, heaped into cairns. 

In its prime, it must have been difficult to attack  with near vertical slopes on three sides and a deep natural cleft on the fourth.

Castle Law- the deep cleft can be seen on the right

The defensive cleft

Dumyat itself is topped by a memorial to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a seat depicting a black hole in the memory of the O.U. mathematician, Michael Simpson, a beacon and a trig point.

Memorial seat

The main reason for climbing Dumyat is the views.

Looking north there is a great sweep of mountains from Ben Lomond to Ben Lawers. Ben Venue, Ben Ledi, and Ben Vorlich with Stuc a' Chroin can all be seen and Ben More glimpsed in the background.

Looking south  you see the meandering course of the Forth and Stirling with the Wallace monument.

The view also takes in the Sheriffmuir, site of the battle between Jacobite and Hanoverian forces in the 1715 rising. The pro-government forces under John Campbell, Duke of Argyll held the Highland army under the Earl of Mar and stopped it linking up with Jacobite forces in the south thus effectively ending the '15 rebellion.

Sheriffmuir

An interesting wee hill is Dumyat