PLANS for a Trossachs lookout tower have been given a boost after securing a £231,000 grant.
Funding for the project, which is being organsied by the Steamship Sir Walter Scott Trust, has come from the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund (RTIF), managed by national tourism marketing agency VisitScotland on behalf of the Scottish Government.
The trust plans to build the lookout tower and two viewpoints with linking boardwalks above the Trossachs Pier visitor hub at Loch Katrine.
“The scenic tower, viewpoints, and linking path secured planning permission last year and will be built on the spot where Sir Walter Scott was inspired to write his epic poem The Lady of the Lake, published in 1810, which is credited with triggering the birth of Scottish tourism,” said the trust.
“They will provide a more accessible vantage point overlooking the loch for those unable to climb the surrounding mountains and help with the management of visitors around the busy Trossachs Pier site.”
The trust added: “The site was visited earlier by other literary giants such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Wordsworths, who stayed in wicker huts at this jutting headland, which were built for ‘the accommodation of strangers to admire and sketch this wild and picturesque landscape’ and were made accessible by a new road blasted out of the rock in the 1790s.
“A 188-metre path from the Trossachs Pier car park to the new scenic viewpoints is due to be built shortly on part of this historical and now overgrown road, with funding that is already in place.”
Read more stories on Scottish Field’s outdoors pages.
Plus, don’t miss photographer Kevin Morgans’ puffin pictures in the November issue of Scottish Field magazine.
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