Go to the Main Scottish Cave and Mine Database Search Page

Wallace's Loup (undercut) [Devol Glen]]

Kilmacolm Road, Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire.

Large undercut below 20 m waterfall in deep steep sided ravine. The entrance is approximately 15 m across with a maximum height of 3-4.5 m . The exact depth varies as the sandstone recedes into a bedding plane for at most 3 m.

The Devil's Glen waterfall was historically one of the beauty spots of the local area but latterly was mostly forgotten and the footpath to the side has closed as unsafe and is now largely non-existent and overgrown.

Local legend refers to Sir William Wallace being chased on horseback by English troops, approaching a deep ravine and urging his horse to leap the gap. Wallace of course reached the other side but when the English troops approach they found the ravine about 100 ft across. The 100 ft leap as described is nonsense but with a little local knowledge the story is not entirely impossible. A short distance upstream of the 'loup' is the waterfall and above that the stream can be forded or jumped easily. Foreign troops of course could not know this and would only see their enemy escaping on the other side of an uncrossable chasm.

There are other sites in Scotland with the name Wallace's Loup with similar legends (including at Raehills on the Kinnel Water and a rock near Roseneath Castle) and several reports confuse the locations (particularly mixing Cartsburn in Greenock with Cartsburn in Glasgow or with the Black Cart near Paisley).

Park at N55° 55.716' W 04° 42.647' which is a viewpoint car park on the B 788, Auchmountain Road (or the Kilmacolm Road) rising above Greenock/Port Glasgow. Go down the road about 100 m and find a gate on the right, careful, it's not bolted to the post! Make your way across the field towards the given coordinates. There is no established path (yet!) and it's very boggy underfoot. You should be able to find your way over broken down fences to the Devol Burn. Geocache hidden on the west side of a small waterfall underneath an overhang. I guess the contents will get wet in no time so please try and seal the box carefully. Accuracy was only ± 15 m at the time of placement and I guess you won't get much better but it was consistent. Please be very careful here as the rocks are very slippy as they're always wet and covered in moss/leaves etc.

[Due to gorse growth since the original writing, it is easier to to go east from the viewpoint down past a couple of scraggy trees to a bit of boggy ground then down to the broken fences but this could cange from year to year.]

The actual location of the cache is irrelevant [it was not found 18/4/2026]; the real reason is to visit Wallace's Loup, downstream of the cache site. Make your way back along the west side of the burn into the glen proper. You will see the falls on the right (it doesn't look much from above) but it's too steep to descend at first. Go further down along the bank and the path will swing back towards the loup. Be careful, it's steep and slippery. As you approach the falls the glen opens up in front of you. No right words to describe it but it could be from 'Blue Lagoon' if it was only 25 degrees warmer! You can get right round the back of the waterfall where there's a birds nest up on a ledge. Try and leave no trace of your visit so this place remains as unspoilt as possible. This is a real gem of a location. [Gruff]

A group of five (from the BBS or British Bryological Society), later joined by Tom (Blockeel), explored the Devol Glen situated to the edge of the Greenock conurbation. Initial access via a disused railway was somewhat off putting due to the dreadful amount of littering and dumping but within a few metres upstream the group where in another world, inside a spectacular gorge. A fairly early discovery was one of several superb patches of Jubula hutchinsiae on the wet rocks by the burn, some of the best populations Gordon had seen. Jubula was collected from nearby 'Gourock' in 1862 and another old record was for Neckera crispa collected from Devol Glen in 1860 by A. McKinlay. A rather steep descent to a secluded, shaded amphitheatre below a large waterfall was rewarded by a large patch of the Neckera along with some Orthothecium intricatum. Other records from the glen included Fissidens dubius, Dichodontium flavescens, Eucladium verticillatum, Rhynchostegiella teneriffae, Lejeunea lamacerina, Riccardia palmata and Metzgeria conjugata. Tom found Orthotrichum striatum*, Ulota calvescens and more Colura calyptrifolia* on scrub to the

woodland edge. [BBS]

Assessment 23/3/2026. Access to the base of the waterfall and the undercut behind is difficult. The precipitous east side of the gorge is about 75 m in length with 30-40 m in height of crumbling slimey and mossy rock, near vertical with occasional trees spouting out of fissures. The falls themselves are a 20-25m vertical drop from a narrow boggy valley in amongst scrubby trees. Impressive even in relatively dry conditions, thunderous when wet. The west side of the gorge is less steep and not so high but while it may be possible to scramble down in a few places, using the scrubby trees as handholds, it is still very steep and slippery and at minimum a well anchored handline and a safety line should be required. Just possible to climb unaided but very risky (no trustworthy hand or footholds, no reliable belay points (the trees are mostly rotten and covered in moss) and while there are grassy ledges providing possible routes down to stream level there is no guarantee these are solid and they cross above vertical drops to the rocky streamway).

Approaching up stream from below the way is blocked by a 7 - 8 m waterfall in a narrow crevice between the two sides of the gorge. The mossy rocks here form an overhang with no obvious hand or foot holds and the rock walls east and west areunclimbable. Previous visitors seem to have managed to climb down the west side of the gorge with no ropes or ladders but this is not recommended (unsafe even if just about possible). [John Crae] See also possible fissure cave to east of the falls.

2nd visit 187/4/2026. Handlines made short work of the steep & slippery 'path' (or greasy ledges covered in loose leaves) to get down to the streamway about 40 downstrem of the major waterfall (and undercut). Interesting and awkward but not really difficult. Possible to scramble upstream past and through fallen trees to 8-10 m diameter pond at the base of the waterfall. In relatively good weather, possible to ford the stream with the water shallow enough to stay dry in wellies and to work around both sides of the pond and under the falls to complete a through trip. The undercut is a good 15 m wide bot gets narrowerand shallower on the east side. From 20 m above the pool, the water is thrown about 1 m forward of the cliff edge. The sloping rock at the base of the under cut climbs until about 1.5 - 2.5 m above the water then rises more steeply to a projecting ledge. At its deepest, it is at most, 3 m from the drip line to the back of the undercut. Pretty but not exceptional. Worth a visit if the journey is as important to you as the destination. [I like it but perhaps not a caver's cave, better for geologists and botonists.]

Alternative Names: Devol Glen [undercut], Devil's Glen [undercut]

Notes: In their descent from the hills, some rivulets form very fine cascades, appearing from the shore like wreaths of snow; the chief of them (behind which from the scooping of the rock, one may easily walk) bears the name of Wallace, our brave and disinterested patriot. [OSA]

Devol's Glen itself was once called Davol which is derived from the Gaelic Diabhoul, the name of the "evil one". The ravine and stream start some two and a half miles south of the town and the glen was regarded in the 19th century as being "rocky, wooded and romantic". At the top of the glen is Wallace's Loup, over which Sir William Wallace is reputed to have leaped on horseback, and there are several waterfalls throughout its course. [Gruff]

A waterfall on the Devol Burn in Inverclyde, Wallace's Loup lies at the head of the Devol Glen above Port Glasgow. It is traditionally suggested that William Wallace (1270 - 1305) leaped over the fall on horseback. [Gazetteer for Scotland]

In 1668, Sir Patrick Maxwell of Newark sold the lands of Devil's Glen to the city of Glasgow, who built upon it the harbour of Port-Glasgow. [Metcalfe]

See also Devolution and Devol Glen Fissure Caves.

Hydrographic Feeds: Devol Burn

Hydrographic Resurgences: Devol Burn