The Devil’s Pulpit is somewhere I had never heard of until a couple of months ago when Shak mentioned that a work colleague had recommended visiting as it’s a magical place. Some of the photo’s online looked great so early Monday morning we set off to get some sunrise pics and pay it a visit.
Devil’s Pulpit is formally known as Finnich Glen and is only a couple of miles south of Drymen so less than a 30 minute drive from Glasgow. Devil’s Pulpit is seemingly the name of a rock within Finnich Glen but over time has become the common name for the location. Getting to it is easy although there aren’t many parking opportunities. There is some parking available on the junction of the A809\B834 (56.034243,-4.419551) or you can park at Queens View car park and walk for 2 miles. We chose the former and had a short trek through a field before clambering over a small fence to find the path.
The path takes multiple routes and while obvious in the daytime in the dark it was a bit tricky to make sure we were on the right one. It was also pretty muddy thanks to the recent weather in the West of Scotland. After 10 or so minutes we finally arrived at the top of the steps down into the Glen itself. We decided to wait until the sun was up as there was a chance of a really good sunrise and we wanted to tackle the steps in more light.
The steps were laid in the mid 1800’s and it shows. They are worn, sometimes missing and very slippy. We took our time going down and in a couple of area’s it was very tight. Someone has placed ropes to help but we never used them – not sure how safe they are. Once down we started to explore and take some pictures (video courtesy of Shak)
The area isn’t that big but ripe for long exposures. We had a couple of ND filters with us but it was pretty dark so didn’t really need them most of the time. I’m pretty pleased with the photo’s from the day and the full set can be found on Flickr.
The Devil’s Pulpit is well worth visiting but make sure you are wearing some good boots especially if there’s been recent wet weather. If you want to get more unusual shots a pair of wellingtons isn’t a bad shout either so you can wade through the water. It goes without saying that if you arrive in the dark you will need a torch – luckily I’d brought my head torch so we had some light to get us there safely. Also be prepared for a steep decent and a bit of dirt and mud so a change of shoes for afterwards or a towel to get cleaned up is worth taking. Mid summer might also be a better time to visit to try and get some more light into the gorge as there was very little of that when we visited. Enjoy and good luck!