Argyll - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 103

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Café Bluebell 6 Hall St T 01586 552800. Simple-
looking but warm and welcoming café near the tourist
o ce offering a terrific selection of light snacks (soups,

sandwiches, sausage rolls), as well as a gut-busting all-
day breakfast (£7.50). Tues-Sat 9am-4.30pm, Sun
11am-4pm.

Southend and around
Southend itself, a bleak, blustery spot, comes as something of a disappointment,
though it does have a golden sandy beach. Below the cliffs to the west of the beach, a
ruined thirteenth-century chapel marks the alleged arrival-point of St Columba prior
to his trip to Iona, and on a rocky knoll nearby a pair of footprints carved into the rock
are known as Columba's footprints , though only one is actually of ancient origin.
Jutting out into the sea at the east end of the bay is Dunaverty Rock , where a force of
three hundred Royalists was massacred by the Covenanting army of the Earl of Argyll
in 1647, despite having surrendered voluntarily. Southend also marks the end (or start)
of the 89-mile-long Kintyre Way.
A couple of miles out to sea lies Sanda , a privately owned island containing the
remains of St Ninian's chapel, plus two ancient crosses, a holy well, an unusual
lighthouse comprised of three sandstone towers, and lots of seabirds.

Mull of Kintyre
Most people venture south of Campbeltown to make a pilgrimage to the Mull of
Kintyre , made famous by the mawkish number-one hit by sometime local resident Paul
McCartney, with the help of the Campbeltown Pipe Band. It's also infamous as the site
of the RAF's worst peacetime accident when, on June 2, 1994, a Chinook helicopter on
its way from Belfast to Inverness crashed, killing all 29 on board. The Ministry of
Defence blamed the pilots and, despite the findings of a Scottish enquiry and the
opinions of a cross-party select committee, still maintains there were no technical
problems with the helicopter. A small memorial can be found on the hillside, not far
from the Gap (1150ft) - after which no vehicles are allowed.
The Mull is the nearest Britain gets to Ireland, just twelve miles away, and the Irish
coastline appears remarkably close on fine days. There's nothing specifically to see, but
the trek down to the lighthouse , itself 300ft above the ocean waves, is challengingly
tortuous. It's about a mile from the “Gap” to the lighthouse (and a long haul back up),
though there's a strategic viewpoint just ten-minutes' walk from the car park.

Saddell Abbey
Ten miles up the coast from Campbeltown
The ruins of Saddell Abbey , a Cistercian foundation thought to have been founded by
Somerled in 1148, are set at the lush, wooded entrance to Saddell Glen. The abbey fell
into disrepair in the sixteenth century and, though the remains are not exactly
impressive, there's a good collection of medieval grave-slabs decorated with full-scale
relief figures of knights housed in a new shelter in the grounds. Standing by the
privately owned shoreline there's a splendid memorial to the last Campbell laird to live
at Saddell Castle, which he built in 1774.

Isle of Arran
Shaped like a kidney bean and occupying centre stage in the Firth of Clyde, Arran is
the most southerly (and therefore the most accessible) of all the Scottish islands. The
Highland-Lowland dividing line passes right through its centre - hence the cliché
about it being like “Scotland in miniature” - leaving the northern half sparsely