Hill of Allen

Thanks to heritage week 2012, the tower on the top of the Hill of Allen is open this week. I was on a day's holidays so took the opportunity to take a wander up, it being a nice day and all. There's a car park at the base of the Hill which is usually blocked up, but it's open for the week at least.


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You can see in the satellite photo that most of the Hill has been removed at this stage, the quarry has fed many major road projects in the area as far as I know, but the tower is still in situ at the top. I remember going up here as a youngster with a friend who lived nearby, when the air was thick with the legend of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna - the legend had it that this was their seat, and that Fionn himself was buried here.

So what's up there now? A walk uphill through a forest, with constant signage reminding walkers of the quarry to one side, leading up to a pretty impressive tower which was built as a folly between 1859 and 1863 - each of the 80-something stone steps has the name of a builder carved onto it.



As you get to the top, the tower is capped rather oddly (ignominiously?) by a squat conservatory type structure. Obviously this is to prevent damage to the castellations at the top, but it doesn't help you get a view of the surrounding flat countryside.



The tower is as yet untouched by the quarrying operations and is still impressive in its own right.

 

Unfortunately at the base of the tower the brambles are too high to get any sort of panorama, and at the top, well you're hemmed in a bit. That's the disappointing thing.