The Old Sligachan Bridge and Glamaig, Isle of Skye

Best enlarged

Sligachan has long been an important junction on Skye, and the bridge across the River Sligachan forms part of the only road leading to the west end of the island.

The Old Bridge

The oldest known bridge is that still standing alongside the modern road. Whether it replaced an even older bridge, or more likely a ford, is uncertain. The bridge itself appears to have been built in the 1820s and consists of three arches. The middle arch is the widest, but the side arches are not mere flood arches, as the River Sligachan is a wide and ferocious piece of water for most of the year. The roadway is slightly humpbacked over the large central arch and only single track.

Glamaig (Greedy Woman in Gaelic)

Glamaig is the northernmost of the Red Cuillin Hills on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It lies immediately east of Sligachan and is 775 m (2543 ft) in height.

From many angles the hill resembles a perfect cone of scree, though it is linked to the rest of the Red Hills by way of a bealach, the Bealach na Sgairde (pronounced b'ya-loch na skaar-st'ya), meaning the pass of scree.

In 1889, a Gurkha named Harkabir Tharpa scaled Glamaig in a 37 minutes; his total time for the round trip, starting and finishing at sea level in the bar of the Sligachan Inn was 55 minutes. Legend has it that he ran it in bare feet, and his record stood until the 1980s, despite being attempted by Olympians such as Chris Brasher in the 1950s.