Ardnamurchan Point

The lighthouse at Ardnamurchan Point stands at the tip of a peninsula that reaches so far west it confounds the mental map of most British visitors — further west than Belfast, with only a neighbouring knuckle of rock, Corrachadh Mòr, edging fractionally beyond it as the mainland's true westernmost point. The headland's volcanic rock drops into waters where minke whales surface through the summer.

The lighthouse was designed by Alan Stevenson — of the engineering dynasty that lit Scotland's coast — and built in 1849 of pinkish granite, the old keepers' buildings still standing in its lee. The geology is older and stranger: the whole tip of the peninsula is the eroded ring complex of a sixty-million-year-old volcano, its concentric dykes legible from the high ground like growth rings in timber. The single-track road out narrows progressively until the last stretch feels like a farm track, which filters the traffic to the committed. Minke whales, basking sharks and dolphins work the nutrient-rich waters off the point on their own calendar, and pine martens haunt the oakwoods along the road in, obliging no one.