Benbeoch

30 January 2014

Participants: Just me
Where: Benbeoch, 464m/1,522', Sub-2k Marilyn, Map 77, NS 495083

Well that was something different! Benbeoch stands in the middle of an open cast coal mine or, more correctly, Benbeoch is an opencast coal mine. Jealously guarded by Scottish Coal, I had read accounts of  hill walkers hiding behind boulders to avoid the security, climbing the hill on Christmas day when there was no work going on and other such surreptitious activities. Such is the world of the Marilyn bagger. However, all that changed a few months ago when the company went bust. One day they were there, the next they were gone.

 

So it was with a fair bit of confidence that I parked opposite the farm of Pennyvenie on the B741 just east of Dalmellington. On the hill, the map was no good as all the contours had been made meaningless by the opencast workings. I had looked at Google Earth before I left the house to see what the land looked like but in the event it had changed a lot in the short time since GE was produced.

 

However, the hill turned out to be simplicity itself. Through a gate opposite the farm, across a field and through another gate on to this track heading uphill with my summit ahead of me.....

 

 

I followed it until it met a much wider and smoother track, presumably the main "road" in the mine.....

 

 

I turned left along that track for a few hundred yards until I could see a way up the hill, following the line of an old wall. The route was roughly in the direction of the left hand skyline in this picture.....

 

 

The whole place was deserted. Not a soul to be seen, nor a piece of machinery. Once off the track I followed the wall which led me to a couple of gates in a barbed wire fence that crossed the hill. Why that fence was needed is a mystery as there clearly had not been any animals on the hill for years. Soon I could see the cairn.....

 

 

which turned out to be quite substantial.....

 

 

I was surprised to find a tattered Union Jack on a thick metal pole stuck into the cairn; I suspect that it had been put there to commemorate some long ago battles (or maybe not so long ago) rather than as a hint as to which way to vote in the forthcoming referendum....

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The views were certainly different.....

 

 

 

 

It's only when you are actually looking down on these mines that you realise their scale. It's going to take a lot of time and money to restore all of that ground. Given that an opencast mine has a fairly short shelf life anyway, I can't imagine that this one will ever open again. So Benbeoch is once again available for all to climb, and if you can manage to ignore the sight of the workings, it's not a bad walk either.