ABOUT THE MEMORIAL:
Inscribed on the metal wall of the viewing platform directly overlooking the Falls of Falloch are the writings of Dorothy Wordsworth:
"Being at a great height on the mountain, we sate down, and heard, as if from the heart of the earth, the sound of torrents ascending out of the long hollow glen. To the eye all was motionless, a perfect stillness. The noise of waters did not appear to come this way or that, from any particular quarter: it was everywhere, almost, one might say, as if "exhaled" through the whole surface of the green earth. Glenfalloch, Coleridge has since told me, signifies the Hidden Vale; but William says, if we were to name it from our recollections of that time, we should call it the Vale of Awful Sound.
Dorothy Wordsworth, 1803"
The following information about the platform where this memorial is located is from the proposal for its construction, which was funded in 2013-2014:
"This site is situated on the A82(T) in Glen Falloch located approximately half way between Loch Lomond and Crianlarich, hidden from the road by roadside woodland. A sharp turn off the road leads into a small car parking area located at a section of old road made redundant by improvement works. The West Highland Way runs through the Glen along the other side of the river at a higher level.
The viewpoint is at the end of the existing fully accessible pathway which runs beside the River Falloch. It provides dramatic views of the Falls which Dorothy Wordsworth (sister of the poet William) wrote about in 1803.
Exactly 210 years ago, the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote movingly of their visit to the Falls of Falloch: she recalled that on approaching the Falls, the noise of the pouring waterfall 'did not appear to come this way or that, from any particular quarter: it was everywhere, almost, one might say, as if "exhaled'' through the whole surface of the green earth'. Informed by this historical account, the proposal presented here functions as a sheltered viewing platform for the sublime experience of watching the waterfall at close range.
This tunnel-like shelter is designed as an acoustic amplifier, which modulates the sound of the waterfall to users of the structure. Designed with an angular form, the 9 metre long shelter snakes through the trees and down the slope to the cliff edge facing the waterfall. Like a trumpet, the tunnel widens,along its length, concluding with a stepped timber seating platform, for two or three people, and which is dominated by a sheltered view of the whole waterfall. The shelter is designed as part of a 'route-ofdiscovery' through the forested banks to the Falls of Falloch.
As the visitor moves through the tunnel, the sound of the waterfall is modulated by the form of the tunnel, made louder and quieter, never visible until turning the final corner before the end of the tunnel, where the source of the noise is framed by the tunnel mouth entirely. The shelter is constructed entirely from steel reinforcing bar, an extremely durable, malleable and inexpensive material which weathers to a rusty red. This material would patinate with time, and contrast pleasingly with the green forest in summer, as well as against a winter palette.
The thin steel rebars are literally 'woven' through simple steel frames in a manner reminiscent of willow-weave fences and other forest craft traditions. Resting on localised foundations which 'touch the ground lightly' above the forest floor, this almost maintenance-free woven structure can become overgrown by the surrounding forest like a garden trellis or bird's nest, a hidden folly in the 'Glen of Concealment'; a shelter "filled with 'aweful sound, the roar of the Falls everywhere, almost, one might say, as if 'exhaled' through the whole surface of the green earth..."."
--Scottish Government (
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ABOUT THE POET:
"Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their lives. Wordsworth had no ambitions to be an author, and her writings consist only of series of letters, diary entries, poems and short stories."
--Wikipedia (
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