UKC

I think the Allt-na-Reigh cottage should be torn down and the land rewilded as a matter of national importance.

And perhaps a bronze statue of Hamish McInnes and accompanying plaque respectfully erected at the Bidean car park just along the road. 

It seems that every time I drive past that cottage there are curiosity seekers having a good nosy around. Factor in the obscene language grafittied all over it and you have a sight which is completely at odds with the local and nationally important aesthetic. 

If the UK government can de-facto seize land to expidite human cattle from Birmingham to London then surely that cottage can be rid off and the land re-wilded for the nation too.

The grafitti and curiosity seekers are getting worse so I'm a bit miffed at the logic of this position-

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23977884.mountaineers-object-plan-demolis...

I apologize to anyone this subject may upset. It is a tough one for sure.

I thought this was going to be about overpriced shirts

😂

Cooking rooms????

*Coming round

Hopefully, for extra respect, with the correct spelling.

Agreed 👍

To be fair - and in some degree of mitigation - I suspect that this might come second only to 'Sir Chris' in the league of spelling errors inflicted on famous British climbers!

Sure Ian 🙂👍 And apologies for my bad spelling🙏

Wilfred Noyce

Presumably it's been arrived at pragmatically. If a developer owns the land and is looking to build something, the council probably can't/won't force them to demolish the cottage and re-wild, so aiming to just enforce sensitivity to the landscape is probably the best they can realistically push for.

Couldn't the council just issue a compulsory purchase order for the cottage?

Maybe that's easier said than done.

But still 🤔

Are you aware that someone has bought it and planning to demolish and redevelop?

Mountaineering Scotland opposed a previous proposal (and it was ultimately withdrawn). New proposals have been lodged:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67378616

New design looks ok to me - better than the mess that's there!

I'm not saying it looks hideous but it does resemble a toilet block. The coach parties will be pulling up to let the oldies have a widdle.

I am, yep.

What the CGI artist didn't account for though are the words 'p**do beast' which will inevitably get painted on the side of that big wall. 

No, it looks hideous. Given the location, what about stone, grass roof, sympathetic design, carbon negative, hydropower even? A golden opportunity for some imaginative architect.

Instead, same old rubbish.

Councils are very cash strapped. Spending £300k(?) on a house vs say upgrading a school??

That is always going to be the case. There will always be more important things to spend money on.

I'm not denying your point btw; which is very valid at the moment.

However, there is a case for my proposal in respect of what is in the national interest.

How about we just deduct it from the sovereign grant?

Poetic justice and all that.

Well yes! For me a house in Glen Coe isn't something government should get involved with, beyond strictly enforcing planning rules, no matter how notorious.

Why not exactly?

This is not just any house on any street.

It's the lair of a notorious, establishment-protected child molestor. And it is slap-bang in the heart of the national treasure of Glen Coe.

If ever there was a house that the government should get involved with, this is it.

We can get involved in doing up royal houses no problem whatsoever.

Because it's private property.

Shrug!! I just don't care. Pretty much anything government might do has higher priority for me. If we want better national parks, £300k would go very, very much further doing other things.

Exactly. And do you know what would make Glen Coe even better? Removing Jimmy Saviles house from it.

To clarify- it's Savile 'row', as in 'argument'.

That's way better than the previous proposal which looked like a 70's outdoor centre.

Yes, that does look cr@p. Personally, even if I could afford the undoubtedly outrageous asking price, I wouldn't want to live there right next to a constantly buzzing major route in a tourist hotspot. Then there's the weather and the midges. I love the Highlands and I've walked over the surrounding hills but I've never really gotten to love Glen Coe like I have other places.

The responses to the question so far show that-

77% agree to demolish the house and rewild the land, and

23% disagree

Are you looking at the same poll as me?

• 32% agree (Yes)
• 10% disagree (No)
• 58% give a range of different answers many of which are clearly erring in the side of levity and don’t translate to a yes.

Taking account of yes and no responses only.

However, if we consider the response of 'Grafitti routinely removed' as a 'no' (1 vote), and 'Pull down every building with a connection with evil persons' as a 'yes' (6 votes) and discount the other answers as spoiled votes ('Dogs', 'Cheese or cake', etc), then presently the percentages are-

79% yes (for the motion)

21% no (against the motion)

You'll be claiming it's the "will of the people" next.

Do you not think that 'Pull down every building with a connection with evil persons' seems a bit impractical and might be a sarcastic response with a hint of doubt about the plan rather than an enthusiastic endorsement? If people were taking the whole question entirely seriously then you probably wouldn't have so many 'spoiled votes'.

'lair'?

Time to get back to the Daily Mail comments section. 

Steady on 🤣

Of course.

Which is why originally I used only the yes's a no's.

Can't please everyone eh.

A wee bit of flair, in the word 'lair'.

Purchase the cottage using a compulsary purchase order.

And the money to buy it? Take 50% of the cost from Andrew Windsors and the other 50% from Charles Windsors, share of the annual money the Windsor family take from all of us.

It doesn't matter where you take the money from. The question is whether it's a priority for whatever money is available. You, oddly in my view, think this is worth spending a lot of public money on. It's a busy road with plenty of worse eyesores (ski centre, Kings house, huge carparks). If the money is there, spend it on something with impact - landscape restoration, footpaths, retrofitting houses, upgrading schools. Whatever.

Why spend money on anything when there is always something else to spend money on is the crux here then.

Meanwhile, down at Savile's old house, there are swear words and all sorts spraypainted in big huge letters all over the walls. Perfect for the tourists and school trips as they pass.

All in the heart of Glen Coe.

Here's a question- would that house be allowed to stand if it were it situated in the park in front of Buckingham Palace?

I say take the money from the Windsors and get rid of it.

Could the SNP not chip in? They must have something left out of £600k after buying a camper ...

How are you proposing the local authority or even the Scottish government are going to "take the money from the Windsors"?

I suppose that depends...

Are the Windsors honourable people or not?

What? Against the billions of pounds the Conservative party have funnelled to themselves and their pals, and you're worried about £600k  😂

Regardless of the source of the funding, to erase the site entirely would be the right thing to do in my eyes.

Given its prominent location and continual grafitti- which isn't likely to end just because a new building gets erected, it is likely to remain an open sore for many many years to come.

🤣🤣

Setting aside your ridiculous suggestions for funding it would most likely be Highland Council that footed the bill. Like many local authorities HC are flat broke.  I'd far rather see them spend money on stuff that benefits the people of the Highlands not quelling the outrage of a few bampots. This would be a particular waste of money as there is already a solution in place i.e. a new building.

Well yes.  Budgets and priorities.  Fairly basic stuff

I'd say it's very likely to stop once the owners have a new house - something of value  -  there.

If it was it would have been brought by some oligarch and have private security preventing the graffiti artists.
Not sure of the relevance though?

I hope no victims read that utter scheidt

This has got nothing to do with Saville's victims and everything to do with a small group of people indulging in a bit of recreational outrage.  

Buckingham Palace is another nationally important site/location. 

It's ironic that there would be no limit to the public money that would be spent to ensure that the words 'p**do beast' do not regularly appear in large letters at that site/location.

This has deviated and I take responsibility for that.

It just doesn't sit right, that's all.

A bronze statue erected at the Bidean car park for Hamish MacInnes.

And the memory of Savile removed from Glen Coe as best as possible, i.e the cottage levelled and the site rewilded.

So much resistance to this.

Is it cognitive dissonance week or something?

Errm....I don't want to see that!

You're right. Apologies.

It's gone now.

I'm not sure you know what that means!

The resistance is mostly to daft/expensive solutions to problems (graffiti) with an existing solution (new building).

Looks like I hit a nerve with that one 😉

Jokes aside, I do understand your point Dave.

Glen Coe is an important place.

And it would be very fitting if a memorial to Hamish MacInnes could be built there.

Having a desire to rid Glen Coe of any trace or memory of Savile, to the best of our abilities, well... with respect to the barriers to those ends and how they could be removed, I don't think any suggestion should be viewed so negatively.

Forget the Windsors, have you thought about badgering the Duke of Argyll for a few quid? It would be appropriate given the shameful way his crowd treated those poor MacDonalds.

I might just try that ✊😁

What a horrible, distasteful mix up. Two things that should be entirely separate mashed together because two men lived in the same house years apart.

If you want to rid Glen Coe of the memory of Saville, why have you created a post on a forum about him once owning a house there. 

When I drive past it, it don't think about Saville, I think about climbing the buchaille with my dad when I was a kid, or taking him along the oanach eagach for his 60th.

There's no need to do anything other than for everyone to stop talking about it.

I was determined to avoid this thread, but...

Last night I assumed that this was a tedious wind-up but clearly I was mistaken as it's now Monday and you'd have presumably sobered up by now.

Ciro's response is spot on. I drove past it on Friday with two friends and I was telling them about the house and the various nearby historical dosses (Drey, Bendy, Rannoch). Savile's name wasn't mentioned. To me it was and is Hamish's old house, which I coveted when I lived in the Glen many years ago (post Hamish's ownership, pre Savile).

Regarding statues of Hamish, FFS, sorry but what are you on? I'd wager that if such a statue was erected Hamish himself would rise from the grave to knock it down.

Have you sought the views of anyone who lives in the area? There used to be a regular poster on here who grew up in Allt na Reigh.

If you are so triggered by Allt na Reigh, try learning a bit more about the history and culture of Glencoe, or alternatively just stop going there and direct your frustrated energy to something constructive like helping victims of sexual crime rather than starting tiresome threads on here.

Sorry to disagree but the obscene filth continually spray painted in huge letters leaves no doubt about who lived there. People from the whole world see that. Young and old. Social media keeps drawing curiosity seekers. Continually. It's a place with that reputation now. And that's overshadowing a nationally important area.

The spraypaint is always in full view, and at a particularly scenic part of the drive through the glen. It sticks right out. 

And why should it matter if you don't live a few miles up the road from it. The spectacle is in full public view to the public. Everyone has the right to be annoyed by it.

The statue thing is about the standard for a local person who makes that kind of positive impact on the world, which is why I suggested it. 

This thread is an absolute car crash. You've found a problem with an existing solution, suggested expensive, unworkable and inappropriate alternatives then somehow managed to conflate memorialising one of our greatest ever mountaineers and mountain innovators with anti-paedo rage. I'd just move on and chalk this one up to experience.

Nobody on this thread is responsible for conflating the images of the two.

That work is being done by news headlines and social media posts-

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands-islands/6246441/savile-...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pr6p83kd4o

The subject is a car crash.

Any monument erected at that site is likely to get defaced with more Savile grafitti.

If a monument is to be erected for a local person then doing it along at the car park instead of at the site of the cottage would seem a sensible suggestion to make.

And getting rid of the site would rid Savile graffiti from the area entirely.

And that sums it up.

I think you underestimate the passion of the lunatic fringe - some of these idiots would graffiti the building even if it was turned into a childrens home. I recall a few years back when a paediatrician got their house covered in ‘Peedo Beast’ graffiti. 

Of which you are now part.

I honestly thought that when you started this thread you were probably drunk or off your face. It really is a car crash, shame it's not in The Pub forum where it would disappear as it's hardly a good advert for the forums.

As are you. And me  

Steady on.  

“It really is a car crash, shame it's not in The Pub forum where it would disappear as it's hardly a good advert for the forums.”

Perfectly reasonable post in my view. FWI, my opinion is that the building should be demolished and left to nature. Anything about McInnes is a red herring.  

"every time I drive past"....."land re-wilded for the nation"

I'm struggling with the concept that a plot of land on the verge of the very busy A82, with its constant stream of cars and HGVs can be "re-wilded".

It's a familiar refrain mind you...there was wailing about the Kingshouse revamp "spoiling the wilderness" seen from the drive thru. Wilderness is somewhere your BigMac Meal is cool by the time you park there apparently.

The largest "dewilding" factor in the Glen is the road - that frequently seems to slip the minds of folk who want a better shortbread tin view from their motors as they pass through on the road which they filter out of their perception.

As for the house - don't care, certainly don't fancy living there so close to maddening traffic though! 

Surely, though, everyone's craning to see what things are looking like up in C. nan L., not looking out for graffiti.

Or, indeed, oncoming traffic

The juxtaposition of the view past Gearr Aonach up to SCNL and that filthy graffiti as you round those bends.

It's a crap situation.

I wouldn't expect wildcats to settle there. But you never know.

All the Big Macs there were slaughtered a few hundred years ago. Along with the Wee Macs.

Sounds like a good case for the Glen Coe tunnel project.

I'm in!

It's got a grand view though.

I'm fascinated about who are these sad bastards who feel the need to continually drive to the middle of nowhere and spend loads of money on cans of paint defacing a building about a total scumbag, who everyone else has forget about over 12 years ago. It's just perpetuating the memory. Some people have weird obsessions. 

I think it could probably make a decent bothy.

I suppose we're lucky not to have hi-vis wearing protestors blocking the road there demanding everyone stop paying the BBC licence fee.

It was/is an immense scandal though. The BBC, the royals, the police, the politicians- it's about as nasty and connected as a scandal in the UK can get.

No doubt. It would have been a very very busy bothy, being so close to the road in the heart of the Coe.

The singing would probably be heard in the village!

?!

?

.

⛔

As things stand it's 74% in favour of knocking it down and allowing the patch of land to be wild again.

Of all the votes so far I'd say that 55 of them are valid-

Yes

41 votes

No

10 votes 

Graffiti routinely removed and cottage left to stand until people forget about *coming round to vandalise it, so it just becomes an old building that's a way marker again.

2 votes

Crowd fund repairs and let refugees live in it

2 votes

An honorable mention go's to-

Learn to use apostrophes

3 votes

(so thats' 3 people which think that UKC stands for Ultimate Karen Club) 😝

From the vote I think you just need to start a new thread about whistle and flutes! 

....rrrriiiiiiiiight

Meanwhile, Jimmy Saviles old cottage still stands covered in obscene grafitti in the heart of Glen Coe.

The vote was a temperature check on the matter. 

Diddums!

I’d love to see Banksy do some art on that cottage, just to put the cat amongst the pigeons. 

That is genius!

Your retards wouldn't know a Banksy if it was poked in their eyes. A cock & balls is more your level.

Maggot...

Nuff sed

If  Banksy ever did a cock and balls I reckon I know what’d be called…

What'd is a cracker of a contraction.

Go on... what would it be called?

Wanksy

🤣🤣