The Herald - The Herald Magazine
MY FAVOURITE PLACE
ANDREW COTTER, BROADCASTER AND AUTHOR
so the fenceposts were a boon. We reached what we thought was the summit, and immediately retraced our steps back down the hill. It wasn’t until several years later that I realised we hadn’t reached the summit at all. Ben Challum has two tops, and we had only reached the lower one!
This south top of Ben Challum can be confusing in the mist for you have to descend slightly west to gain a short, rocky ridge, which in turn drops to a high bealach between the two tops.
It’s then an easy climb to the real summit from where, as one of the highest hills in the old hunting forest of Mamlorn, the views can be spectacular, with Ben More and Stobinian dominant to the south and the Bridge of Orchy hills close by to the north.
Since that youthful foray I’ve climbed the Munro three times more and twice as an addendum to the big Glen Lochay hills of Beinn Heasgarnich and Creag Mhor. These hills of the Mamlorn forest are broad and well-muscled
GOING down, or going up? A staircase is a passage to somewhere – leading you to some marvel of a view or experience, or just helping you get to some other part of a city.
But they are also often architectural or construction wonders in themselves, worth pausing over and admiring.
LIGHTHOUSE STAIRCASE, GLASGOW
One of the joys of a spiral staircase is looking up or down into the helix. Research has shown that our minds are attracted to the shape of a spiral, and the form is often symbolic of spiritual development. But you can leave all overthinking behind as you climb up this magnificent modern example, housed in Scotland’s national centre for architecture and design, the former Glasgow Herald building, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. 134 steps lead from the Mackintosh interpretation centre to the top of the tower which Mackintosh originally designed as the building’s water tower. The thrill is, in part, the panoramic views right over the city, you get from the platform at the top.
WHALIGOE STEPS, CAITHNESS
It was women who used to do most of the hard work of lugging creels up and down the cliff-side zig-ag of between 300 and 365 steps to the Whaligoe Haven, Scotland’s least accessible and most isolated harbour. Some of those who went down to collect and gut the fish, from vessels there, would be in their seventies, and after they hauled their herring or cod up the cliff-face, they would have to walk the eight miles then to Wick.
THE SIXTY STEPS, GLASGOW
Runners use them as part of their exercise circuit. Visitors take a wander up to the Belle Vue and a look out on the River Kelvin basin. These, the steps that made North Kevinside, have lost some of their former glory. They’re no longer lined with ornate cast iron lamps. But they still make an impression, as they rise up from the river Kelvin, in the west end of Glasgow, curving round what looks like a castle wall, complete with columns, arrow slits and a mysterious door. . They were the brainchild of John Ewing Walker, cab proprietor and property developer and were then created by the preeminent architect of his day, Alexander “Greek”
Thomson.
THE SCOTSMAN STEPS, EDINBURGH.
When artist Martin Creed started his project to revamp the Scotsman Steps, the connecting passage between North Bridge and Waverley Station built in 1899, the steps were in a sorry state – so misused, they stank of urine and were often called “the pishy steps”. Creed made them glorious, cladding each of them in glorious marble of a different colour, rendering each so you wanted to stop and stare at the textures beneath your feet. He said at the time, “Whatever I did had to be functional. But I also wanted it to be beautiful.”
BROCH OF MOUSA, SHETLAND
Not only are the steps inside this Iron Age broch – dating to around 100BC – some of the oldest in Scotland, they are also extraordinary. Housed inside the hollow wall of this round tower on the island of Mousa, Shetland, they connect the ground with the top of the wall and various chambers off it. Access is gained through an entrance in the 5m thick wall, and it rises up over 13 metres, leading to a panoramic view of Mousa Sound. Other stairs around this old include the 29 steps down into the darkness of Mine Howe, on Orkney.
VICKY ALLAN
and exploration. The Submariner is a model first brought to market by Rolex in 1953 and it is still manufactured today. Its many iterations over the last 67 years have created a vast network of eager buyers, from connoisseur collectors to everyday wearers.
As well as seeing a steady rise in auction value over the last ten years, some Rolex sports watches have actually seen their values double in the last five.
Depending on date and back-story, the auction value of a Submariner can be anywhere from £6000 to £140,000!
Now we cannot suggest that these many thousands of Submariner enthusiasts are all putting on their wetsuits of a weekend. But what we do know is that these timepieces