Blue

Earlier this year, when leading a Ramblers walk near Torwood, one of the walkers asked me whether or not we would be visiting the Blue Pool. Until that point, I had never heard of the Blue Pool but, given that our intended route through Tor Wood was closed due to forestry operations and that the pool was located in the wood , the answer was "not on this occasion".

However, a spark of curiosity was ignited and I decided that at some point I'd try to find this pool for myself, a task made rather difficult due to the continuing forestry operations. On Saturday I started my walk from Denny, rather than Torwood, and was able to access the site without falling foul of the "no public access" signs that adorn some of the surrounding paths.

The Torwood Blue Pool is a brick-lined pond, four metres deep, but no-one knows for certain when it was built, by whom or for what purpose. Various theories exist around all of these questions (and more) and also the reason why the Pool has its distinctive colour (now a somewhat different shade of blue due to the presence of algae in the water).

For me, though, it was another 'first' in both visit and photography terms, although I have walked past the path that leads to the pool several times in the past. Always good to discover something new on one's doorstep, relatively speaking.