Byres Hill and the Hopetoun Monument

This afternoon after lunch we drove out to East Lothian.  In the back of my mind I had this idea of a walk up this hill.  We had driven past the car park a while ago but had not got out.  Today it was bright and sunny though and I thought it would be a great view point over the plain of East Lothian fields.

We parked in the small car park in the woods and stopped to read the notice board which explained the history of the monument.  There is more detail on Wikipedia

It was a short steep walk to the top of the hill and the Tower and there were nice views, but the exciting bit was that the door to the Tower was open and so we climbed the 132 dark steps to the top.  It was windy up there but the views over the county were fantastic.




We chatted to a guy up there who was taking photos with the intention of stitching together a 360 panorama.  He also told us some of the local geology and pointed out that the hill was jsut the end of a rocky escarpment heading to the east that had survived glaciation.

I took some photos but it is hard to get them to show all the scale of the view.  A nice afternoon walk though.