| Fothringham Hill | |
| Parking | You can park in the village of Iverarity. There is a free car park next to the Church. Or do like we did and dump the car at the bottom of the hill. |
| Distance | 3 miles there and back |
| Height / Ascent | 250m AOD. 150m ascent from Iverarity |
| Bogginess | 2 / 5 |
| Strenuosity | 2 / 5 |
| Other Info | None |
Introduction
Where to go to today? We didn't really have much idea or direction where to head off to so we decided to just get in the car with the trusty OS map and start driving. We drove out into the contryside looking for something interesting, any historic ruins or suchlike. After driving a bit we came to Iverarity. A sleepy, quaint wee village with a nice church, so we thought we would park up and have a nosy. After a brief look around the church we thought to ourselves, where now? We looked at the map and saw Fothringham Hill just up the road, with a curio entitled 'Temple' on the map. Hey, we were getting bored with country parks so why not try a hill climb, especially one with a tempting morsel such as a 'temple' on it. So off we went.
Getting There and Parking Up
Inverarity is easy to get to. It is located on the B9127 which can be accessed off the A90 dual carraigeway running between Dundee and Aberdeen. The turn off for Inverarity is about a mile away from Forfar on it's south side and can be accessed from both the north and south bound carraigeways.
Once on the B9127 head eastwards a wee bit and you will come to Inverarity. Don't worry, it is well signposted. Once in the village there is a car park behind the Church (shown below). It's a pretty sleepy village so I doubt there will be much demands on this car park. Moreover, it's free.
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| Inverarity Church. The car park is immediately behind it. |
The start of the walk up Fothringham Hill is a stones throw north of Inverarity off the B9127, marked with the red marker on the map below. You can use the car park at the back of the church and walk up (shown below) or you can do like we did and dump the car on the B9127 just at the start of the walk. The lazy sods that we are.
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| The car park is at Inverarity marked but the black dot. The start of the walk is marked by the red. |
Search for the Temple
So after abandoning the car, we start our walk up the hill. From the start we are plunged into dense woodland. Thankfully there is a nice, clearly defined path up there. It also has some stones placed on the surface to help traction and prevent it getting boggy.
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| The path up. Nice and gentle and quite well manicured. |
Trudge, trudge. Up we go. The path was quite good. Not too boggy although I would imagine it could get that way after some heavy rain. The incline is pretty gentle too so nothing too strenuous. Unfortunately, not a great deal to see so far unless you like looking at trees. We have a look up to see what the weather is likely to do. Pretty dense cloud. Maybe rain. ugh!
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| Pretty dense clouds. Not rain again! |
So after not too far we happen across this wooden structure. Townies like us are not au fait with the ways of the countryside so we don't have a clue what it is. Still, it doesn't take much deduction to work it out. Its a shooting gallery. Climb up, aim the shotgun and blow away your prey. I'm sure it's all an intrinsic part of managing the countryside????
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| What could this be for, we thought? It's for killing things with guns. |
Anyway, after a quick inspection of the shooting thingamajig we head further on up the hill. It's much of the same thing, woodland with the occassional rocky bit, really not much to see. We are thinking to ourselves we must be getting close to the top now but still nothing. Then, out of the corner of our eye, we spy this structure hidden in the trees. What could it be? We take a closer look.
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| What could this be? Is it... |
Is this it? Have we finally found the 'Temple'? We look at the OS Map. It's hard to pinpoint the location of the temple on the map. Moreover, we really don't have much idea where we are in relation to the map. We won't be winning any medals for orienteering! We go round to the front and are greeted by this cool structure. We really didn't expect anything like this. We are convinced this must be the Temple we have been searching for. After all it looks kinds templey.
Turns out it wasn't the temple. That is further on at Lour Hill. We weren't even that close to it. However, we did not discover this until long after we had left. This building is actually an 18th century folly used but people visitng the hill to rest and picnic. And it has recently been restored. However, at the time we didn't know that and we were well chuffed with what we had found.
Regardless, we eventually had something to photograph. So we got a good fill of snaps. I also tried HDR again. The light was quite bright around the temple and the sky was blowing out so I thought it would be a good plan. At the time, I liked the results but looking back they have that horrible HDR look and I think I would have processed them differently.
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| The Temple? No, it's not! |
So after getting a good few snaps we went inside and were greeted with a nice bench which allowed us to get a sit down for a wee while.
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| Inside the folly. Benches are good! |
After our rest we checked the map again. It looked like there was a wireless station further on. So we left the temple / folly and headed on. Eventually we came across this old, abandoned station.
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| The abandoned wireless station |
After taking a few photos of the outside we tried the door and were able to get in. The inside was pretty dank like something out of a horror movie but there were signs there had been work done here recently.
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| The dank, eerie wireless station |
So after inspecting the inside and the rickety mast we decided to call it a day. We had seen what we thought was the temple and also this wireless station and got to the top of Fothringham Hill. Again, at the time we didn't realise there were plenty of goodies to see on Lour Hill (including the real temple) or we would have gone there. However, we were happy with our day and decided to head back down the hill. This should have been the straightforward bit but we managed to make a real meal of it.
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| The decaying wireless mast |
As I said our orienteering skills ain't the best so we though instead of going back along the path we just came from, that it would be quicker to go down the other side of the hill. There was a path part of the way there but after it ended so thought we would just take route A1 and go cross coutry. It wouldn't be far, would it, if we headed in the right direction?
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| It's a jungle out there |
So we started battering through tall ferns and dense woodland only to be confronted by even denser woodland and fences. Where were we? We had gotten well lost and didn't have a clue how to get back to the path. We could see the edge of the woodland but that was no help as it didn't help us orientate ourselves in the direction of the path.
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| The endless woodland. How do we get back to the path? |
So we decided to just go downhill and hope we found our way out. Eventually after getting battered off of thick tree branches for the umpteenth time, we found a clearing. It was one of the shooting galleries we had happened across earlier. Thankfully, there was nobody with a shotgun there as we wouldn't have liked getting mistaken for pheasants. So we scrambled up the cleared area and eventually found ourselves back on the path. Thankfully!
So we headed back down the path (no detours this time) and back to the car.
Heading Home - Reflection
We had a good day out. It was fun climbing up Fothringham Hill. Not just to see what was there but also just the challenge of getting to the top. Our little detour through the woods made us think we have to maybe plan our routes better in advance instead of just horsing around without thinking. Maybe even a compass might be helpful. Not only might it help us get out of situations like that but it would also help us find our way to the interesting parts of the walk. In retrospect, charging through the thick woods looking for the path was quite fun albeit not at the time it wasn't. And, as you will see in later posts, getting lost and in precarious situations seems to be a speciality of ours.
As for photography, we got some pretty decent snaps of the buidlings and of our little adventure through the woods. I tried HDR again but the results were not that great. Something I will have to improve upon.
