Trollied Tuesday: a monumental session

If you're ever in Preston, I advise you to get out as soon as you can. But while you are there, consider one curious landmark in the rather more appealing countryside that surrounds the place: Paddy's Pole.

It is a bit of scaffolding erected on a trig point on Fair Snape Fell by, I am assured, an Irish labourer named Paddy. You might guess that his inspiration for carrying it all the way up there was alcohol. And, sure enough, it seems it was the result of a wager struck in a pub that he couldn't take a bit of scaffolding up to the trig point on the fell.

Now it is possible that, as with all such stories, an element of embellishment or even mythologising has crept in to it, but I rather hope this account is true. Apart from the fact it makes a useful landmark for walkers and fell runners, I like to think of it as something of an enduring memorial to the inspiration that can strike any of us during a night at the pub and testament to the formidable powers of booze.

I'm afraid I've only seen the thing at a distance from the nearby fells, but here are some images taken by somebody else should you wish to visualise it.