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Talk:List of long-distance footpaths in the United Kingdom

Move?
I suggest moving this to "List of long-distance footpaths in the UK" - any objections? This is in line with our list name policy without being too long. --Eloquence 11:38 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

Jurassic?
Hasn't this article missed out 'Jurassic Way' in Warwickshire/Northamptonshire/Leicestershire G-Man 18:45 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Coast to Coast?
Where's the Coast to Coast? ( http://www.ramblers.org.uk/info/paths/coasttocoast.html ). Has it just been forgotten, or is it purposely not on the list because it's unofficial? --David Edgar 07:47, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Added it. --David Edgar 10:33, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Harcamlow Way?
Shouldn't this be included? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xjks (talk • contribs) 13:40, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Location info?
Most entries also mention the county, others mention the start and end place names. Is there a policy to be consistent and if so which is preferred? Nick1nildram 14:37, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Ideally, should mention both and any other counties passed through.

Distance measurements
Can we have these changed to miles? Most people who walk in the UK are simply not familiar with km. Lancsalot 10:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Often a problem, although of course the UK is officially using kilometers. I end up using different systems for different things - so although I drive in miles, I really only understand a walking distance in kilometers. Perhaps we need both if someone has the patience to go through and do the conversions?

 * Changed to miles, which is the official UK measure for such distances. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chose another name (talk • contribs) 11:10, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

 * Reverted- not for footpaths where it is km and m- see advice [] miles to be used only in the US. Hope that is helpful. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 12:34, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

 * Why don't footpath lengths here follow the normal British practice of primarily using miles and yards? How come this article is exempt from WP:UNITS, and why isn't that fact (if it is a fact) made plainly obvious anywhere? Cousin Bluey (talk) 20:32, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

 * Because that is no longer the 'normal British practice'. Go to the footpaths subcommittee of any parish council- look at the consultative papers from the county (needed for a diversion or temporary closure- an and you will see it is all written in metres and it has been for decades. Google parish council footpaths committee diversion order and you will find 762 thousand examples. The reason probable lies in that it is a legal requirement. CAD systems that are needed to generate the paper work natively work on a decimal scale and the output can go through a x 63600 multiplier that is similar to WP convert template- but they will always convert back before doing arithmetic. Ordnance survey maps use meters for every thing - and even the milk in my fridge is labelled 2.27 litres (4 pints). Kids don't learn it in schools and wouldn't know how many chains times by how many furlongs are needed to make up an acre.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 22:41, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

 * Dear User talk:ClemRutter, it may not be the practice of government agencies to use imperial, for various legal reasons, but it IS the normal practice of the British people as a whole. This you would realise if you watched British TV, read British newspapers or mixed with British people. And this isn't just my opinion, it is supported by the recent YouGov survey done for UKMA (UK Metric Association) - see http://www.ukma.org.uk/docs/sam.pdf for the details and UKMA summary. In fact, UKMA, an organisation which tends to exaggerate the level of metrication in the UK, complain that "the basic assumption that underlies Government policy - that metric education in school will lead naturally to a general acceptance of metric units for all purposes - is shown to be incorrect" - that is: the metric system has not yet been accepted by the British people - clearly and plainly put.

 * Even if we ignore the fact that it is untrue to say "is no longer the 'normal British practice'", why is this article is exempt from WP:UNITS, and why isn't that fact (if it is a fact) made plainly obvious anywhere? And why was my good-faith attempt to change WP:UNITS to say that totally reversed? This needs a serious review and clarification if what you claim is to be credible. Cousin Bluey (talk) 06:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

 * Thank you, your interest in this page is fairly recent. You have identified two points: WP:UNITS could be worded better, and you are not prepared to accept the authority of government agencies which for Wikipedia is a reliable source- you prefer an obscure POV. The page you cite is a criticism of government policy within a large website of a single issue organisation- no mention of footpaths or encyclopedia building. The conversation finishes there.
 * MOSNUM:The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 09:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It also seems unwise to change all the distances in the article from the figures given, which we hope were reliably sourced, into converted figures to be re-converted. If (as is not the case here) it was agreed that they should be displayed with miles first, then the parameter "disp=flip" in convert would do the trick, without any loss of accuracy. (And I query the initial premise that "Most people who walk in the UK are simply not familiar with km", as a mature rambler myself: most walkers I know are happy to work in either km or miles.) Pam  D  12:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Waymarked/Unwaymarked Routes
I would find information about which routes are waymarked very useful. Any ideas about how to incorporate this into the existing article ? PeterGrecian 14:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Could easily be mentioned where known, someone might have to do a bit of painstaking research to find out for others.

Infoboxes and Maps
Wouldn't all these paths benefit from having a location infobox? What would it contain?
 * Name
 * Maintaining Organisation
 * Start Point
 * End Point
 * Landranger Map Numbers
 * Category - ie Seriously Fanatic, Fit, Unfit, Afternoon with the Toddlers
 * Time to complete
 * Highest point
 * Lowest point
 * Landscape Encountered
 * Special Features

Wouldn't all these paths benefit from having a symbolic map- showing intersections with other paths. Entry points. A touch of the Wainwright. What should it contain? Maybe that should be in the infobox?

I am dualposting this comment on category and page. ClemRutter 11:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * We could use a table like that on Tame Valley Canal or a map like that on BCN Main Line or both. See Railway line template for more on the railway maps, from which the canal maps are derived. Andy Mabbett 11:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Looks good. I can see that we could use it for Wealdway but the Pennine Way? How much detail? How long would be the optimum length? Would it be useful, or acceptable to walkers? Footpaths go up and down, canals do have locks- do we use similar symbols? Paths can be fp s, bridle, metalled? They can run along rivers to the left/right? Paths have Panoramas, towns to the left/right- easy to do. Lot of work -mmm- I go and sharpen the Inscape! ClemRutter 13:08, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I'm not convinced about the route map idea. Junctions with other named footpaths are not particularly significant compared to a railway line's junctions with other lines for example; and information about interesting places on the route are better dealt with in prose, which gives more scope for explaining the significance of a particular location. --VinceBowdren 20:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Maps need not be about junctions; they can also show features; see, for example, Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal. Features can still be discussed in the prose.

 * Lets "brainstorm" the items that might go in an infobox: start point, end point, start point coordinates, end point coordinates, length, date opened, other footpaths joined, counties visited. Any more?

 * Andy Mabbett 20:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I think the model is different- other paths is interesting- like a county border, while a bridge, car park or station is significant. Walking here in Kent is a different pastime to in Edale, or Snowdonia- significantly different information is needed. I don't know. But prose leaves me cold, I can pick up a 1:25000 map and see the country. Can these easily editable symbolic maps or 'routers' give a quick overview of the nature of the walk. I think they can. Given your reservations, any ideas on the example?ClemRutter 23:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, the 'hill' and 'steep hill' icons are a bit vague. A Kent walker is likely to have a different idea of what counts as steep (or even counts as a hill) from a Cumbria walker, for example. Certainly a good OS map is much clearer, but wikipedia is not a map; prose may leave you cold but it is this encyclopaedia's primary format, and can communicate this kind of a-bit-subjective information more clearly than a route map, which gives the impression of being a lot more cut-and-dried than it should be here. --VinceBowdren 06:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

 * "Well, the 'hill' and 'steep hill' icons are a bit vague." - that as a first stab, a 'proof of concept', using existing icons. They could just as easily represent "gradient above (or below) 1 in 5" or "gradient for more (or less) than one mile, or whatever; or there could be a series of icons covering a range of slopes. Andy Mabbett 10:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

 * "prose may leave you cold but it is this encyclopaedia's primary format" study after study has shown that, for writing on the web, text with diagrams and images, rather than simple blocks of text, are more readily absorbed by readers.

 * Andy Mabbett 10:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I like the idea of adding an infobox. The basics about the end-points, the distance, the date of origin and so on should of course be included; but I would avoid any categories where the information is difficult to objectively source e.g. Time To Complete, or Landscape Encountered. --VinceBowdren 20:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Take on board objectivity, but to the walker doing a quick wiki, time to complete is useful info, and landscape is easy to determine from existing guidebooks, and helps if you are doing a random wiki to decide your day out. They will be quicker to implement than 'routers' ClemRutter 23:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Todays Guardian did a 'guide to walks' supplement, based on walks from the pay site, http://www.walkingworld.com. Each walk has a info box.
 * Classification:
 * Distance in km (then miles)
 * Typical duration
 * Height Gain
 * Starting point (name)
 * OS grid reference
 * OS Explorer map #
 * They then describe the walk, with Walk in a nutshell, why it's special, keep your eyes peeled for, but bear in mind, impress your companions, where to recover afterwards, if its tipping down, how to get there by car, by public transport. They give a map and one photograph. This could give us a few clues.ClemRutter 07:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Example
Here's a short example, using canal icons for the southern section of the Beacon Way. Of course, other colours and icons may be more appropriate for paths. Andy Mabbett 21:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Seems to work for 50km? Do we split the walk if it is longer than 100km? I am having a serious look at available icons, I am behind you on the learning curve.ClemRutter 23:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * For longer routes there are two options; they are not mutually exclusive. One is to show the same level of detail, and divide the route into several sections, with a map for each. The other is to have a map for the whole route, but show fewer features. Compare, for example, the whole West Coast Main Line with the Trent Valley Line, a smaller section of it. Bear in mind that new icons can be created as required. Andy Mabbett 10:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, there is scope for drawing 'routers' at different 'scales' so to speak.

 * I have done a bit of field work on the Medway Valley Path Yalding- seeing the problems of a 12km simple route- it involved road junctions, raillines and stations, a river, locks, bridges. It twists, and recrossing sig features.

 * Looking at the Greensand Way article there is already a list of places that could become a 'router'.ClemRutter 07:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Did anything come of this? Andy Mabbett 13:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. Panic. I have looked at Formatvorlage Bahnstrecke and Railway line template and there are 20 basic icons that need to be reworked- green seems to be the best colour. We can start with one column only for in open country- then should add a second for in built up areas. The symbol names should be prefixed with F- for Füssweg which in English will be Footpath. This will mean that the routers can be prototyped with the original Bahnstrecke icons- and then easily edited over. Convention is to use German abbreviation for icons, I am easy with that.Addition icons will be needed rivers, brook, Bach that run alongside, FBachL, FBachR, a lake sea See to right, Left etc. Towns-Stadte Good view, Aussichtpunkte. We need crossings- Roads, Railways,Rivers, Railways. We also need gradient indicators, and other Blue information icons Hospital, Parking, Antiquity, Camping, Informationpoint, Nota bene. using the letter H,P,A,C,I,!. Technically this just takes time but is easy.

 * The BS-daten Template will be adequate to use.

 * Different walks will require different levels of detail. The longer the path- the more vague it can be and use fewer symbols- so the more importannt will be the easiest to code.

 * Panic. The scale of the task of providing a router for each UK long distance and leisure path.

 * I have had no further indication whether this will be wanted or not by the general community- so is it worth while doing.

 * Just short of time. ClemRutter 16:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

 * This sounds great. I think diagrams like this would be an extremely useful addition to the current content for many pages.
 * Perhaps it's also worth doing this in conjunction with WikiProject Hiking Trails, since diagrams like these would be useful internationally too.
 * I see there's already a post (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hiking Trails) mentioning a couple of Canadian trails which already have diagrams using the rail symbols. --David Edgar 17:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've posted greeting there, they are in a Backpacking project- and are discussing infoboxes too.ClemRutter 18:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The specific examples are Galloping Goose Regional Trail and Lochside Regional Trail. They're particularly significant as bicycle paths, so I displayed major road crossings, and are notable as intermunicipal trails, so I displayed those boundaries when I could figure them out. This suggests to me that each path will have different diagram requirements based on use, length, location, etc. My feeling is that the railway icons were quite adequate, the only things obviously missing were gradient (as discussed above) and path surface (which is particularly significant for urban and bicycle paths, although there are also grading systems for hiking, eg Yosemite Decimal System). Vagary 20:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I made a start at creating some icons in green. I created an initial table at User:David Edgar/Footpath legend. Using these, I made an adaptation of the example above, shown on the right. (I didn't have all of the relevant icons ready yet, so I replaced missing ones with straight icons. You should still get the general idea.)
 * I've added a few more: abbreviations obvious. Put a commons link to FPIcons, new category on the legend page and here.

I realised too late that it should have been FPicons.ClemRutter 23:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree slightly with the idea that all the names must be in German. It seems to me that this is only because of the original source of the icons. For more recent icons in Route diagram template/Catalog of pictograms/watercourses, for example, the names have been in English - Lock, Gate, Stair, Dry, Toll etc. etc. It's only icons of the same design but a different colour which have kept their original primary name (with a prefix letter added).

One particular icon I would like added for footpaths is one for the summit of a hill. Perhaps a trig-point-like symbol?

Any comments? If it's useful, feel free to edit User:David Edgar/Footpath legend and add / convert new icons. --David Edgar 19:56, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Great start! I agree with you about the English naming: the railway icons started as a direct conversion and there's still some desire to stay synchronized with the German project, but we should assume that these are going to be moved to Commons, which is English by default.
 * I have come up with a way of making the icons colour-neutral. It's more technologically complex, so please feel free to disregard it if you don't think it would offer significant labour-savings, but I thought I should mention it...
 * I believe with footpaths the path itself is significant. "This part is inclined", "this part is steeply inclined", "this part is paved", "this part goes through a wooded area", etc. So we should put some thought into expanding the straight section icons, eg:  . Vagary 20:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It looks as if this is a goer.
 * Deutsch/English/Denglish-mir ist egal! Not an issue- just trying to be compatible- just seems sensible to stick to the name prefix system, and its only abbreviations most of which are the same.
 * The path- There are two types of path (UK) footpaths for walkers and bridleways for walkers, horses and other riders- to a walker the change from footpath to bp is an important consideration- to a horseman it is the difference between allowed and not allowed. I suspect mountain bikers have a similar opinion- do we need to show both- how does this internationalise. I was thinking dark green/ light green but couldn't decide which way round- though if the distinction is not important it should default to dark as this looks clearer. (I'm thinking of printouts too.)
 * For gradient there seems to be several ways to proceed. As I have said, I was thinking of chevrons like the lock symbol.A double for 1:3 and a single for 1:5 (but this could be adapted meaning very steep and steep- which would vary in context). The German Bahn site has a section for Mountain lines where a spot height is given in a column to the right of the track. This seems simple, effective and could be used on footpaths.
 * The colour of green needs to be stated in #rrggbb before anything else is done- reds and blues can be taken from canals and railways.
 * Glancing at the color-neutral link- is it more difficult for the author writing the router or just the icon maker? Can it be done in Inkscape?
 * I can do a few of the extra symbols fairly quickly if I am not distracted.
 * ClemRutter 23:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As for the path types, why don't we keep the meaning vague or even defined on a regional basis? If necessary, we could have different legends for regions, or denote it in footnotes. The same with gradients, anything flexible is fine: after a few dozen diagrams have been done we'll have a better idea of what works and what doesn't.
 * The colour-neutral thing could be done seamlessly (ie: the router would do nothing differently) if we forked BS. Which we should probably do anyway - I'm not sure why the waterways people write instead of  - lets make BSf that automatically prefixes the 'f' (or whatever we're using). I used Inkscape to make my examples, so it's certainly the right tool for the job. ;) I've just been waiting for some encouragement to move forward on this, how about I convert your icons and then everybody can look it over? Vagary 23:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No probs. I like the idea of colour-neutral though find the name clumbersome- paths can go through woodland, openfield, along a canal, urban and can be path-footpath-bridleway and if striping the path could allow path-footpath-bridleway. Expandable paths also seems to have more relevance to paths than rail so need to be investigated. As for the templates, while roads need a distance column, for complete flexibility, paths sometimes need columns for distance, height, compass direction, path name/number etc.
 * Do we need to setup a policy page to gather together these ideas- if so where? Or is it too soon. There seem to be many footpath stubs- and national cycle network stubs which seem to have little unity. Will routers be used? Are there enough editors willing to use them? If not is it worth continuing as an intellectual exercise?ClemRutter 10:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I've just been pointed to this discussion as part of a major piece of work on the South West Coast Path. I like the idea in principle (& have used v similar diagrams for canals) but for the South West Coast Path which stretches for 630 miles (1014 km) I don't think it would be viable?— Rod talk 14:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree, but looking at the wealdway 'router'example and the Wealdway page which doesn't display the router. The page lacks much of the information contains in the 'Router' and would be better with it. Since then the issue of geocoding locations has become more relevant- shouldn't all footpath pages include inline geocodes for each town mentioned? The South West Coast Path would benefit from mileage from start information- and intersections with other paths/ bus routes- warnings about particularly steep bits- spots with the best views. The amount of work to do this would be equally awe inspiring. Maybe many sections as discussed above? There is the idea of expanding/contracting sections which I haven't investigated? Just a thought.ClemRutter (talk) 09:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Footpath Icons
This was an interesting exercise. I started with the restricted icon set, and just created the icons as I needed them. It is basically North South. I started putting in the towns/villages and immediately saw that paths avoid big settlements on principal eg Tunbridge Wells. But these can go into comment. Also, most settlements also have notable roads going through them- icon needed and created. The Canals red circle 'Feature to left or right' could be used but the green diamond seemed better for 'country features', and could be used to links to other paths. Using the code u uu d dd for the chevrons was not too bright as up can mean up hill or up the map. Water was a problem- straight lines are OK for canals and navigations but for small brooks and streams I just lifted an icon from BRÜCKE and Ctrl-D and Flipped. Many symbols converge at the nodes- towns, roads, rivers and crossing footpaths- so some must be artificially offset. There is a need for an altitude column but direction is superfluous. The header can be an infobox. And now I am open to comments. ClemRutter 19:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Looks good. How about v vv n nn for chevrons, since they're not being used for anything else that I'm aware of? Here is the same thing with colour-neutral icons: User:Vagary/Footpath Icons. (Which are defined using arbitrary compositions at BSf. My rivers could use some work...) Vagary 00:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Rivers fine- they will combine nicely with Canals/UBahn symbols for any artist that wants to to do lacework with rivers. I don't like v vv n nn the n is too obtuse. I think that it needs to reflect the concept of ascending descending, as you noticed at Cuckmere I got them the wrong way round (now changed). As the editor is working from top to bottom of the sheet, he will know that if he is at a peak and must descent or a river and must ascend. I think that is easier than trying to remember that the pointed end of the n is the high point. (This also retains a German explanation- Aufsteigen to climb and darunter  meaning below. I know this may sound weird but as a German speaker, when I am typing in the Icon abbreviations such as KRZ and STR- it flips my thinking into German- and it is easier to mentally stay there!) So we can have a aa d dd. ClemRutter 19:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not upto speed with template writing or indeed table writing, but I think the template must have two icon columns as many path ways split- e.g. North Downs Way and a column for altitude.ClemRutter 19:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Expanding/Contracting could have applications and should be implemented- but I think it is a danger to get down to field level detail- others may disagree and be willing to create icons for gates and quality of grass but I think Ordnance Survey got there first. ClemRutter 19:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Multiple columns and expanding/contracting are both generalized to the templates shared between all WP:RDT subprojects, so it's up to individual footpath diagram editors to take them or leave them. The problem with initializing Aufsteigen for the chevrons is that 'a' is also used for Anfang; but I agree that semantic naming is preferable to syntactic naming (based on chevron shape). Doing compression like this is destined to be a pain in the ass, maybe we should just go with STRascend, STRdescend, STRstart, and STRend and be done with it. :( Vagary 20:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I have disambiguated Gravesend on this map. Martin451 (talk) 20:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Just how short can long be?
I've just been tweaking an article called Great Eastern Pingo Trail in Norfolk. The 'official' website of the council calls it a long distance footpath -its 8 miles long. To me that's far too short and I suspect others here may agree - but are we out of touch with the modern definition of a long walk?

As a second issue, there seems to be not UK category for walks other than long ones, so this articulate resides in Category:Hiking trails in Europe. Do we need a category for day walks?--JBellis 12:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

 * 50km is mentioned in a couple of places including Long-distance_footpaths_in_the_UKas a cutoff for "long-distance". See below for further reply.  PamD 14:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

GA long-distance path
Just to let you know that Leeds Country Way has been passed as a Good Article. Are there any other paths which are GA, or even FA? I had problems finding where to put it in the WP:GAC nominations page, would have used "Geography/Miscellaneous" if it had existed, went eventually for "Everyday life/Recreation/Miscellaneous". PamD 09:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

categories
There are a couple of Categories already in existence which have the name of a path, eg category:Cleveland Way. I wonder whether these would be better named as "Places on the Cleveland Way" etc? Any thoughts, before these categories proliferate? There are only a handful at present, see Category:Long-distance footpaths in the United Kingdom. I'll post this comment on the category page, but suggest we concentrate any discussion onto this page. PamD 14:21, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've only just found this, after asking a similar question somewhere else (temporarily forgotten where!) and getting no response. I have since created Category:Monarch's Way and so far populated it with places in Sussex and Hampshire (having a breather as it's a long way to Worcester and nearly all places I've done so far are very small and in need of major editing which greatly slows things down but makes the exercise much more useful). It does not look as though you got a response to your idea. I agree with your suggestion, but I'm wincing at the thought of editing them all again! I don't suppose there is a tool which would cause a category-rename to edit all the links to it? Also the categories are in a mess - someone started new sub-categories Category:Long-distance footpaths in England etc and began to move paths from the UK parent cat but stopped - I joined in with Monarch's Way. This needs a task force! Pterre (talk) 09:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * One thought - one meets one or two, erm, strict interpreters of language on Wikipedia who will probably have nothing better to do than start removing "Category:Places on XX" from hills etc on the grounds that they are not "places". Pterre (talk) 11:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It's easy to rename a category - see WP:CFD. (I didn't find this until I'd edited every entry  from Category:Girls schools in England to add the apostrophe - then I found it and got the corresponding boys' category and a couple of other countries' categories done the easy way!)  I note from your userboxes that you also believe in punctuation.  I also have a little personal campaign against "could of" for "could have" and similar, using WP:AWB to do an occasional rescue mission, inspired by WP:TYPO.
 * As for the "place" query... I suppose we could use "Route of..." but I don't like it much. I'd say stick with "Places on.." until/unless anyone else comments? We could acknowledge on the Category page that "places is used to encompass hills and other entities encountered along the route as well as settlements and other locations" or something on those lines.  There doesn't seem to be much interest in discussion on this page, and even WP Talk:WikiProject Hiking Trails isn't very active (they're all out walking?).  I haven't checked around to find out whether there are any "Places on..." or similar categories for any US or other hiking trails, as precedent.  PamD (talk) 12:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you think these categories need official discussion? I created "Monarch's Way" a couple of weeks ago and no one else has touched it so I can't see huge howls of protest if it gets changed to "Places on the Monarch's Way". Or should than be "Places on The Monarch's Way"? Pterre (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

New category "Walking in the UK" needed?
This began as a reply to the second point under "How long is long" above, but grew rather and seemed to merit a new heading as a topic for discussion:

Perhaps we need a category for recreational walking in the UK in general (of which long-distance paths could be a subcat). Looking at category:walking I wonder whether we should create category:Walking in the UK, with a category note which points out that this is not about the sport of racewalking. Subcats would include our own LDPs, and also the existing category:Walking in London, and members of the category would be various short paths (such as Ingleton Waterfalls Trail, the first notable short walk which came to mind), UK walking organisations (eg Ramblers Association), and Hillwalking (which is exclusively UK in scope!) etc. This cat would be a subcat of category:walking, and also of Category:Visitor attractions in the United Kingdom (and anything on sport/recreation/leisure in UK, though I can't find such categories on a quick flip round). Any thoughts? PamD 14:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Categorisation of footpaths
Most paths in the UK are in Category:Long-distance footpaths in the United Kingdom (or its sub-categories), which is a sub-category of Category:Hiking trails in Europe. But some are not, mostly because they are too short to be called long-distance. They are scattered around in Category:Recreational walks in England, Category:Walking in London and Category:Footpaths, none of which is in the hierarchy of categories below Category:Hiking trails in Europe. I suggest one of two things:
 * 1) Rename Category:Long-distance footpaths in the United Kingdom Category:Footpaths in the United Kingdom (with similar renaming of the sub-cats) and put everything in there (or its sub-cats)
 * 2) Create a new category Category:Footpaths in the United Kingdom between Category:Long-distance footpaths in the United Kingdom and Category:Hiking trails in Europe, with sub-cats for England, Wales and Scotland, and put in there the categories for footpaths in individual counties, the recreational path pages, a new Category:Footpaths in London and some of the pages now in Category:Footpaths.  This would be analogous to the hierachy for categorization of US trails, and would be my preference.  This raises again the question raised above of what is "long-distance".  My thought is that the principle should be that long-distance paths are those used for multi-day walks.

Any views? --Mhockey (talk) 13:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Now done (option 2)--Mhockey (talk) 20:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Icons with water
Would there be any objections if I redrew the icons       &  to match the watercourse on, which is consistent with the rest of the water icons set? Useddenim (talk) 22:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I've the same thoughts so, like the famous sport clothing brand say; Just do it. --Civilspanaren (talk) 06:42, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ Useddenim (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

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Pennine Journey
Hi, please see this article Pennine Journey. The walk is annotated on OS Maps and I think the article is reasonably cited. Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 22:26, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

 * @The joy of all things Sorry: I was going on my knowledge of AW's book, and didn't even follow the link to check and discover its current status. Have self-reverted. Comes of looking at watchlist on a phone. Apologies. Pam  D  23:00, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * No worries, thanks for the revert. Happy editing. Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 23:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


text:
Iterator

In computer programming, an iterator is an object that progressively provides access to each item of a collection, in order.

A collection may provide multiple iterators via its interface that provide items in different orders, such as forwards and backwards.

An iterator is often implemented in terms of the structure underlying a collection implementation and is often tightly coupled to the collection to enable the operational semantics of the iterator.

An iterator is behaviorally similar to a database cursor.

Iterators date to the CLU programming language in 1974.

Pattern
An iterator provides access to an element of a collection (element access) and can change its internal state to provide access to the next element (element traversal). It also provides for creation and initialization to a first element and indicates whether all elements have been traversed. In some programming contexts, an iterator provides additional functionality.

An iterator allows a consumer to process each element of a collection while isolating the consumer from the internal structure of the collection. The collection can store elements in any manner while the consumer can access them as a sequence.

In object-oriented programming, an iterator class is usually designed in tight coordination with the corresponding collection class. Usually, the collection provides the methods for creating iterators.

A loop counter is sometimes also referred to as a loop iterator. A loop counter, however, only provides the traversal functionality and not the element access functionality.

Generator
One way of implementing an iterator is via a restricted form of coroutine, known as a generator. By contrast with a subroutine, a generator coroutine can yield values to its caller multiple times, instead of returning just once. Most iterators are naturally expressible as generators, but because generators preserve their local state between invocations, they're particularly well-suited for complicated, stateful iterators, such as tree traversers. There are subtle differences and distinctions in the use of the terms "generator" and "iterator", which vary between authors and languages. In Python, a generator is an iterator constructor: a function that returns an iterator. An example of a Python generator returning an iterator for the Fibonacci numbers using Python's  statement follows:

Internal Iterator
An internal iterator is a higher order function (often taking anonymous functions) that traverses a collection while applying a function to each element. For example, Python's  function applies a caller-defined function to each element:

Implicit iterator
Some object-oriented languages such as C#, C++ (later versions), Delphi (later versions), Go, Java (later versions), Lua, Perl, Python, Ruby provide an intrinsic way of iterating through the elements of a collection without an explicit iterator. An iterator object may exist, but is not  represented in the source code.

An implicit iterator is often manifest in language syntax as.

In Python, a collection object can be iterated directly:

In Ruby, iteration requires accessing an iterator property:

This iteration style is sometimes called "internal iteration" because its code fully executes within the context of the iterable object (that controls all aspects of iteration), and the programmer only provides the operation to execute at each step (using an anonymous function).

Languages that support list comprehensions or similar constructs may also make use of implicit iterators during the construction of the result list, as in Python:

Sometimes the implicit hidden nature is only partial. The C++ language has a few function templates for implicit iteration, such as. These functions still require explicit iterator objects as their initial input, but the subsequent iteration does not expose an iterator object to the user.

Stream
Iterators are a useful abstraction of input streams – they provide a potentially infinite iterable (but not necessarily indexable) object. Several languages, such as Perl and Python, implement streams as iterators. In Python, iterators are objects representing streams of data. Alternative implementations of stream include data-driven languages, such as AWK and sed.

Contrast with indexing
Instead of using an iterator, many languages allow the use of a subscript operator and a loop counter to access each element. Although indexing may be used with collections, the use of iterators may have advantages such as:

 * Counting loops are not suitable to all data structures, in particular to data structures with no or slow random access, like lists or trees.
 * Iterators can provide a consistent way to iterate on data structures of all kinds, and therefore make the code more readable, reusable, and less sensitive to a change in the data structure.
 * An iterator can enforce additional restrictions on access, such as ensuring that elements cannot be skipped or that a previously visited element cannot be accessed a second time.
 * An iterator may allow the collection object to be modified without invalidating the iterator. For instance, once an iterator has advanced beyond the first element it may be possible to insert additional elements into the beginning of the collection with predictable results. With indexing this is problematic since the index numbers must change.

The ability of a collection to be modified while iterating through its elements has become necessary in modern object-oriented programming, where the interrelationships between objects and the effects of operations may not be obvious. By using an iterator one is isolated from these sorts of consequences. This assertion must however be taken with a grain of salt, because more often than not, for efficiency reasons, the iterator implementation is so tightly bound to the collection that it does preclude modification of the underlying collection without invalidating itself.

For collections that may move around their data in memory, the only way to not invalidate the iterator is, for the collection, to somehow keep track of all the currently alive iterators and update them on the fly. Since the number of iterators at a given time may be arbitrarily large in comparison to the size of the tied collection, updating them all will drastically impair the complexity guarantee on the collection's operations.

An alternative way to keep the number of updates bound relatively to the collection size would be to use a kind of handle mechanism, that is a collection of indirect pointers to the collection's elements that must be updated with the collection, and let the iterators point to these handles instead of directly to the data elements. But this approach will negatively impact the iterator performance, since it must effectuate a double pointer following to access the actual data element. This is usually not desirable, because many algorithms using the iterators invoke the iterators data access operation more often than the advance method. It is therefore especially important to have iterators with very efficient data access.

All in all, this is always a trade-off between security (iterators remain always valid) and efficiency. Most of the time, the added security is not worth the efficiency price to pay for it. Using an alternative collection (for example a singly linked list instead of a vector) would be a better choice (globally more efficient) if the stability of the iterators is needed.

Categories
Iterators can be categorised according to their functionality. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of iterator categories:

Types
Different languages or libraries used with these languages define iterator types. Some of them are

.NET
Iterators in the .NET Framework (i.e. C#) are called "enumerators" and represented by the  interface. provides a  method, which advances to the next element and indicates whether the end of the collection has been reached;    a   property, to obtain the value of the element currently being pointed at. and an optional  method,  to rewind the enumerator back to its initial position. The enumerator initially points to a special value before the first element, so a call to  is required to begin iterating.

Enumerators are typically obtained by calling the  method of an object implementing the   interface. a  property, to obtain the value of the element currently being pointed at;   Container classes typically implement this interface. However, the foreach statement in C# can operate on any object providing such a method, even if it does not implement  (duck typing). Both interfaces were expanded into generic versions in .NET 2.0.

The following shows a simple use of iterators in C# 2.0:

C# 2.0 also supports generators: a method that is declared as returning  (or  ), but uses the " " statement to produce a sequence of elements instead of returning an object instance, will be transformed by the compiler into a new class implementing the appropriate interface.

C++
The C++ language makes wide use of iterators in its Standard Library and describes several categories of iterators differing in the repertoire of operations they allow. These include forward iterators, bidirectional iterators, and random access iterators, in order of increasing possibilities. All of the standard container template types provide iterators of one of these categories. Iterators generalize pointers to elements of an array (which indeed can be used as iterators), and their syntax is designed to resemble that of C pointer arithmetic, where the  and   operators are used to reference the element to which the iterator points and pointer arithmetic operators like   are used to modify iterators in the traversal of a container.

Traversal using iterators usually involves a single varying iterator, and two fixed iterators that serve to delimit a range to be traversed. The distance between the limiting iterators, in terms of the number of applications of the operator  needed to transform the lower limit into the upper one, equals the number of items in the designated range; the number of distinct iterator values involved is one more than that. By convention, the lower limiting iterator "points to" the first element in the range, while the upper limiting iterator does not point to any element in the range, but rather just beyond the end of the range. For traversal of an entire container, the  method provides the lower limit, and   the upper limit. The latter does not reference any element of the container at all but is a valid iterator value that can be compared against.

The following example shows a typical use of an iterator.

Iterator types are separate from the container types they are used with, though the two are often used in concert. The category of the iterator (and thus the operations defined for it) usually depends on the type of container, with for instance arrays or vectors providing random access iterators, but sets (which use a linked structure as implementation) only providing bidirectional iterators. One same container type can have more than one associated iterator type; for instance the  container type allows traversal either using (raw) pointers to its elements (of type  ), or values of a special type , and yet another type is provided for "reverse iterators", whose operations are defined in such a way that an algorithm performing a usual (forward) traversal will actually do traversal in reverse order when called with reverse iterators. Most containers also provide a separate  type, for which operations that would allow changing the values pointed to are intentionally not defined.

Simple traversal of a container object or a range of its elements (including modification of those elements unless a  is used) can be done using iterators alone. But container types may also provide methods like  or   that modify the structure of the container itself; these are methods of the container class, but in addition require one or more iterator values to specify the desired operation. While it is possible to have multiple iterators pointing into the same container simultaneously, structure-modifying operations may invalidate certain iterator values (the standard specifies for each case whether this may be so); using an invalidated iterator is an error that will lead to undefined behavior, and such errors need not be signaled by the run time system.

Implicit iteration is also partially supported by C++ through the use of standard function templates, such as , and .

When used they must be initialized with existing iterators, usually  and , that define the range over which iteration occurs. But no explicit iterator object is subsequently exposed as the iteration proceeds. This example shows the use of.

The same can be achieved using, passing a   value as third iterator:

Since C++11, lambda function syntax can be used to specify to operation to be iterated inline, avoiding the need to define a named function. Here is an example of for-each iteration using a lambda function:

Java
Introduced in the Java JDK 1.2 release, the interface allows the iteration of container classes. Each  provides a  and  method,  and may optionally support a   method. Iterators are created by the corresponding container class, typically by a method named.

The  method advances the iterator and returns the value pointed to by the iterator. The first element is obtained upon the first call to. To determine when all the elements in the container have been visited the  test method is used. The following example shows a simple use of iterators:

To show that  can be called repeatedly, we use it to insert commas between the elements but not after the last element.

This approach does not properly separate the advance operation from the actual data access. If the data element must be used more than once for each advance, it needs to be stored in a temporary variable. When an advance is needed without data access (i.e. to skip a given data element), the access is nonetheless performed, though the returned value is ignored in this case.

For collection types that support it, the  method of the iterator removes the most recently visited element from the container while keeping the iterator usable. Adding or removing elements by calling the methods of the container (also from the same thread) makes the iterator unusable. An attempt to get the next element throws the exception. An exception is also thrown if there are no more elements remaining ( has previously returned false).

Additionally, for there is a  with a similar API but that allows forward and backward iteration, provides its current index in the list and allows setting of the list element at its position.

The J2SE 5.0 release of Java introduced the interface to support an enhanced   (foreach) loop for iterating over collections and arrays. defines the method that returns an. Using the enhanced  loop, the preceding example can be rewritten as

Some containers also use the older (since 1.0)  class. It provides  and   methods but has no methods to modify the container.

Scala
In Scala, iterators have a rich set of methods similar to collections, and can be used directly in for loops. Indeed, both iterators and collections inherit from a common base trait -. However, because of the rich set of methods available in the Scala collections library, such as,  ,   etc., it is often not necessary to deal with iterators directly when programming in Scala.

Java iterators and collections can be automatically converted into Scala iterators and collections, respectively, simply by adding the single line

to the file. The  object provides implicit conversions to do this. Implicit conversions are a feature of Scala: methods that, when visible in the current scope, automatically insert calls to themselves into relevant expressions at the appropriate place to make them typecheck when they otherwise would not.

MATLAB
MATLAB supports both external and internal implicit iteration using either "native" arrays or  arrays. In the case of external iteration where the onus is on the user to advance the traversal and request next elements, one can define a set of elements within an array storage structure and traverse the elements using the -loop construct. For example,

traverses an array of integers using the  keyword.

In the case of internal iteration where the user can supply an operation to the iterator to perform over every element of a collection, many built-in operators and MATLAB functions are overloaded to execute over every element of an array and return a corresponding output array implicitly. Furthermore, the  and   functions can be leveraged for performing custom or user defined operations over "native" arrays and   arrays respectively. For example,

defines a primary function  that implicitly applies custom subfunction   to each element of an array using built-in function.

Alternatively, it may be desirable to abstract the mechanisms of the array storage container from the user by defining a custom object-oriented MATLAB implementation of the Iterator Pattern. Such an implementation supporting external iteration is demonstrated in MATLAB Central File Exchange item Design Pattern: Iterator (Behavioral). This is written in the new class-definition syntax introduced with MATLAB software version 7.6 (R2008a) and features a one-dimensional  array realization of the List Abstract Data Type (ADT) as the mechanism for storing a heterogeneous (in data type) set of elements. It provides the functionality for explicit forward List traversal with the,   and   methods for use in a  -loop.

PHP
PHP's  loop was introduced in version 4.0 and made compatible with objects as values in 4.0 Beta 4. However, support for iterators was added in PHP 5 through the introduction of the internal  interface. The two main interfaces for implementation in PHP scripts that enable objects to be iterated via the  loop are   and. The latter does not require the implementing class to declare all required methods, instead it implements an accessor method that returns an instance of. The Standard PHP Library provides several classes to work with special iterators. PHP also supports Generators since 5.5.

The simplest implementation is by wrapping an array, this can be useful for type hinting and information hiding.

All methods of the example class are used during the execution of a complete foreach loop. The iterator's methods are executed in the following order:
 * 1)   ensures that the internal structure starts from the beginning.
 * 2)   returns true in this example.
 * 3)   returned value is stored in.
 * 4)   returned value is stored in.
 * 5)   advances to the next element in the internal structure.
 * 6)   returns false and the loop is aborted.

The next example illustrates a PHP class that implements the  interface, which could be wrapped in an   class to act upon the data before it is returned to the   loop. The usage together with the  constant allows PHP scripts to iterate result sets with billions of rows with very little memory usage. These features are not exclusive to PHP nor to its MySQL class implementations (e.g. the  class implements the   interface as well).

Python
Iterators in Python are a fundamental part of the language and in many cases go unseen as they are implicitly used in the  (foreach) statement, in list comprehensions, and in generator expressions. All of Python's standard built-in collection types support iteration, as well as many classes that are part of the standard library. The following example shows typical implicit iteration over a sequence:

Python dictionaries (a form of associative array) can also be directly iterated over, when the dictionary keys are returned; or the  method of a dictionary can be iterated over where it yields corresponding key,value pairs as a tuple:

Iterators however can be used and defined explicitly. For any iterable sequence type or class, the built-in function  is used to create an iterator object. The iterator object can then be iterated with the  function, which uses the   method internally, which returns the next element in the container. (The previous statement applies to Python 3.x. In Python 2.x, the  method is equivalent.) A   exception will be raised when no more elements are left. The following example shows an equivalent iteration over a sequence using explicit iterators:

Any user-defined class can support standard iteration (either implicit or explicit) by defining an  method that returns an iterator object. The iterator object then needs to define a  method that returns the next element.

Python's generators implement this iteration protocol.

Raku
Iterators in Raku are a fundamental part of the language, although usually users do not have to care about iterators. Their usage is hidden behind iteration APIs such as the  statement, ,  , list indexing with  , etc.

The following example shows typical implicit iteration over a collection of values:

Raku hashes can also be directly iterated over; this yields key-value  objects. The  method can be invoked on the hash to iterate over the key and values; the   method to iterate over the hash's keys; and the   method to iterate over the hash's values.

Iterators however can be used and defined explicitly. For any iterable type, there are several methods that control different aspects of the iteration process. For example, the  method is supposed to return an   object, and the   method is supposed to produce and return the next value if possible, or return the sentinel value   if no more values could be produced. The following example shows an equivalent iteration over a collection using explicit iterators:

All iterable types in Raku compose the  role,   role, or both. The  is quite simple and only requires the   to be implemented by the composing class. The  is more complex and provides a series of methods such as , which allows for a finer operation of iteration in several contexts such as adding or eliminating items, or skipping over them to access other items. Thus, any user-defined class can support standard iteration by composing these roles and implementing the  and/or   methods.

The  class represents a DNA strand and implements the   by composing the   role. The DNA strand is split into a group of trinucleotides when iterated over:

The  class composes both the   and   roles:

Ruby
Ruby implements iterators quite differently; all iterations are done by means of passing callback closures to container methods - this way Ruby not only implements basic iteration but also several patterns of iteration like function mapping, filters and reducing. Ruby also supports an alternative syntax for the basic iterating method, the following three examples are equivalent:

...and...

or even shorter

Ruby can also iterate over fixed lists by using s and either calling their   method or doing a for each on them, as above.

Rust
Rust makes use of external iterators throughout the standard library, including in its  loop, which implicitly calls the   method of an iterator until it is consumed. The most basic  loop for example iterates over a   type:

Specifically, the  loop will call a value's   method, which returns an iterator that in turn yields the elements to the loop. The  loop (or indeed, any method that consumes the iterator), proceeds until the   method returns a   value (iterations yielding elements return a   value, where   is the element type).

All collections provided by the standard library implement the  trait (meaning they define the   method). Iterators themselves implement the  trait, which requires defining the   method. Furthermore, any type implementing  is automatically provided an implementation for   that returns itself.

Iterators support various adapters (, ,  ,  , etc.) as methods provided automatically by the   trait.

Users can create custom iterators by creating a type implementing the  trait. Custom collections can implement the  trait and return an associated iterator type for their elements, enabling their use directly in   loops. Below, the  type implements a custom, unbounded iterator:

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Iterator


text: User:Bluefusion

title: User:Bluefusion


text:
User talk:Bluefusion

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! Nice work on the PowerBook article! --mav

title: User talk:Bluefusion


text:
Handedness

In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjectively preferred, is called the non-dominant hand. In a study from 1975 on 7,688 children in US grades 1–6, left handers comprised 9.6% of the sample, with 10.5% of male children and 8.7% of female children being left-handed. Overall, around 90% of people are right-handed. Handedness is often defined by one's writing hand, as it is fairly common for people to prefer to do a particular task with a particular hand. There are people with true ambidexterity (equal preference of either hand), but it is rare—most people prefer using one hand for most purposes.

Most of the current research suggests that left-handedness has an epigenetic marker—a combination of genetics, biology and the environment.

Because the vast majority of the population is right-handed, many devices are designed for use by right-handed people, making their use by left-handed people more difficult. In many countries, left-handed people are or were required to write with their right hands. However, left-handed people have an advantage in sports that involves aiming at a target in an area of an opponent's control, as their opponents are more accustomed to the right-handed majority. As a result, they are over-represented in baseball, tennis, fencing, cricket, boxing, and mixed martial arts.

Types

 * Right-handedness is the most common type. Right-handed people are more skillful with their right hands. Studies suggest that approximately 90% of people are right-handed.
 * Left-handedness is less common. Studies suggest that approximately 10% of people are left-handed.
 * Ambidexterity refers to having equal ability in both hands. Those who learn it still tend to favor their originally dominant hand. This is uncommon, with about a 1% prevalence.
 * Mixed-handedness or cross-dominance is the change of hand preference between different tasks. This is about as widespread as left-handedness. This is highly associated with the person's childhood brain development.

Measurement
Handedness may be measured behaviourally (performance measures) or through questionnaires (preference measures). The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory has been used since 1971 but contains some dated questions and is hard to score. Revisions have been published by Veale and by Williams. The longer Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire is not widely accessible. More recently, the Flinders Handedness Survey (FLANDERS) has been developed.

Evolution
Some non-human primates have a preferred hand for tasks, but they do not display a strong right-biased preference like modern humans, with individuals equally split between right-handed and left-handed preferences. When exactly a right handed preference developed in the human lineage is unknown, though it is known through various means that Neanderthals had a right-handedness bias like modern humans. Attempts to determine handedness of early humans by analysing the morphology of lithic artefacts have been found to be unreliable.

Causes
There are several theories of how handedness develops.

Genetic factors
Handedness displays a complex inheritance pattern. For example, if both parents of a child are left-handed, there is a 26% chance of that child being left-handed. A large study of twins from 25,732 families by Medland et al. (2006) indicates that the heritability of handedness is roughly 24%.

Two theoretical single-gene models have been proposed to explain the patterns of inheritance of handedness, by Marian Annett of the University of Leicester, and by Chris McManus of UCL.

However, growing evidence from linkage and genome-wide association studies suggests that genetic variance in handedness cannot be explained by a single genetic locus. From these studies, McManus et al. now conclude that handedness is polygenic and estimate that at least 40 loci contribute to the trait.

Brandler et al. performed a genome-wide association study for a measure of relative hand skill and found that genes involved in the determination of left-right asymmetry in the body play a key role in handedness. Brandler and Paracchini suggest the same mechanisms that determine left-right asymmetry in the body (e.g. nodal signaling and ciliogenesis) also play a role in the development of brain asymmetry (handedness being a reflection of brain asymmetry for motor function).

In 2019, Wiberg et al. performed a genome-wide association study and found that handedness was significantly associated with four loci, three of them in genes encoding proteins involved in brain development.

Prenatal hormone exposure
Four studies have indicated that individuals who have had in-utero exposure to diethylstilbestrol (a synthetic estrogen based medication used between 1940 and 1971) were more likely to be left-handed over the clinical control group. Diethylstilbestrol animal studies "suggest that estrogen affects the developing brain, including the part that governs sexual behavior and right and left dominance".

Ultrasound
Another theory is that ultrasound may sometimes affect the brains of unborn children, causing higher rates of left-handedness in children whose mothers receive ultrasound during pregnancy. Research suggests there may be a weak association between ultrasound screening (sonography used to check the healthy development of the fetus and mother) and left-handedness.

Epigenetic markers
Twin studies indicate that genetic factors explain 25% of the variance in handedness, and environmental factors the remaining 75%. While the molecular basis of handedness epigenetics is largely unclear, Ocklenburg et al. (2017) found that asymmetric methylation of CpG sites plays a key role for gene expression asymmetries related to handedness.

Language dominance
One common handedness theory is the brain hemisphere division of labor. In most people, the left side of the brain controls speaking. The theory suggests it is more efficient for the brain to divide major tasks between the hemispheres—thus most people may use the non-speaking (right) hemisphere for perception and gross motor skills. As speech is a very complex motor control task, the specialised fine motor areas controlling speech are most efficiently used to also control fine motor movement in the dominant hand. As the right hand is controlled by the left hemisphere (and the left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere) most people are, therefore right-handed. The theory depends on left-handed people having a reversed organisation. However, the majority of left-handers have been found to have left-hemisphere language dominance—just like right-handers. Only around 30% of left-handers are not left-hemisphere dominant for language. Some of those have reversed brain organisation, where the verbal processing takes place in the right-hemisphere and visuospatial processing is dominant to the left hemisphere. Others have more ambiguous bilateral organisation, where both hemispheres do parts of typically lateralised functions. When tasks designed to investigate lateralisation (preference for handedness) are averaged across a group of left-handers, the overall effect is that left-handers show the same pattern of data as right-handers, but with a reduced asymmetry. This finding is likely due to the small proportion of left-handers who have atypical brain organisation.

Developmental timeline
Researchers studied fetuses in utero and determined that handedness in the womb was a very accurate predictor of handedness after birth. In a 2013 study, 39% of infants (6 to 14 months) and 97% of toddlers (18 to 24 months) demonstrated a hand preference.

Infants have been observed to fluctuate heavily when choosing a hand to lead in grasping and object manipulation tasks, especially in one- versus two-handed grasping. Between 36 and 48 months, there is a significant decline in variability between handedness in one-handed grasping; it can be seen earlier in two-handed manipulation. Children of 18–36 months showed more hand preference when performing bi-manipulation tasks than with simple grasping.

The decrease in handedness variability in children of 36–48 months may be attributable to preschool or kindergarten attendance due to increased single-hand activities such as writing and coloring. Scharoun and Bryden noted that right-handed preference increases with age up to the teenage years.

Correlation with other factors
The modern turn in handedness research has been towards emphasizing degree rather than direction of handedness as a critical variable.

Intelligence
In his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand, Chris McManus of University College London argues that the proportion of left-handers is increasing, and that an above-average quota of high achievers have been left-handed. He says that left-handers' brains are structured in a way that increases their range of abilities, and that the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the brain's language centers.

Writing in Scientific American, he states: "Studies in the U.K., U.S. and Australia have revealed that left-handed people differ from right-handers by only one IQ point, which is not noteworthy ... Left-handers' brains are structured differently from right-handers' in ways that can allow them to process language, spatial relations and emotions in more diverse and potentially creative ways. Also, a slightly larger number of left-handers than right-handers are especially gifted in music and math. A study of musicians in professional orchestras found a significantly greater proportion of talented left-handers, even among those who played instruments that seem designed for right-handers, such as violins. Similarly, studies of adolescents who took tests to assess mathematical giftedness found many more left-handers in the population."

Left-handers are overrepresented among those with lower cognitive skills and mental impairments, with those with intellectual disability being roughly twice as likely to be left-handed, as well as generally lower cognitive and non-cognitive abilities amongst left-handed children. Left-handers are nevertheless also overrepresented in high IQ societies, such as Mensa. A 2005 study found that "approximately 20% of the members of Mensa are lefthanded, double the proportion in most general populations".

Ghayas & Adil (2007) found that left-handers were significantly more likely to perform better on intelligence tests than right-handers and that right-handers also took more time to complete the tests. In a systematic review and meta-analysis, Ntolka & Papadatou-Pastou (2018) found that right-handers had higher IQ scores, but that difference was negligible (about 1.5 points).

The prevalence of difficulties in left-right discrimination was investigated in a cohort of 2,720 adult members of Mensa and Intertel by Storfer. According to the study, 7.2% of the men and 18.8% of the women evaluated their left-right directional sense as poor or below average; moreover participants who were relatively ambidextrous experienced problems more frequently than did those who were more strongly left- or right-handed. The study also revealed an effect of age, with younger participants reporting more problems.

Early childhood intelligence
Nelson, Campbell, and Michel studied infants and whether developing handedness during infancy correlated with language abilities in toddlers. In the article they assessed 38 infants and followed them through to 12 months and then again once they became toddlers from 18 to 24 months. They discovered that when a child developed a consistent use of their right or left hand during infancy (such as using the right hand to put the pacifier back in, or grasping random objects with the left hand), they were more likely to have superior language skills as a toddler. Children who became lateral later than infancy (i.e., when they were toddlers) showed normal development of language and had typical language scores. The researchers used Bayley scales of infant and toddler development to assess all the subjects.

Music
In two studies, Diana Deutsch found that left-handers, particularly those with mixed-hand preference, performed significantly better than right-handers in musical memory tasks. There are also handedness differences in perception of musical patterns. Left-handers as a group differ from right-handers, and are more heterogeneous than right-handers, in perception of certain stereo illusions, such as the octave illusion, the scale illusion, and the glissando illusion.

Health
Studies have found a positive correlation between left-handedness and several specific physical and mental disorders and health problems, including:

 * Lower-birth-weight and complications at birth are positively correlated with left-handedness.
 * A variety of neuropsychiatric and developmental disorders like autism spectrum, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and alcoholism have been associated with left- and mixed-handedness.
 * A 2012 study showed that nearly 40% of children with cerebral palsy were left-handed, while another study demonstrated that left-handedness was associated with a 62% increased risk of Parkinson's disease in women, but not in men. Another study suggests that the risk of developing multiple sclerosis increases for left-handed women, but the effect is unknown for men at this point.
 * Left-handed women may have a higher risk of breast cancer than right-handed women and the effect is greater in post-menopausal women.
 * At least one study maintains that left-handers are more likely to suffer from heart disease, and are more likely to have reduced longevity from cardiovascular causes.
 * Left-handers may be more likely to suffer bone fractures.
 * Left-handers have a lower prevalence of arthritis and ulcer.
 * One systematic review concluded: "Left-handers showed no systematic tendency to suffer from disorders of the immune system".

As handedness is a highly heritable trait associated with various medical conditions, and because many of these conditions could have presented a Darwinian fitness challenge in ancestral populations, this indicates left-handedness may have previously been rarer than it currently is, due to natural selection. However, on average, left-handers have been found to have an advantage in fighting and competitive, interactive sports, which could have increased their reproductive success in ancestral populations.

Income
In a 2006 U.S. study, researchers from Lafayette College and Johns Hopkins University concluded that there was no statistically significant correlation between handedness and earnings for the general population, but among college-educated people, left-handers earned 10 to 15% more than their right-handed counterparts.

In a 2014 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard economist Joshua Goodman finds that left-handed people earn 10 to 12 percent less over the course of their lives than right-handed people. Goodman attributes this disparity to higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems in left-handed people.

Sports
Interactive sports such as table tennis, badminton and cricket have an overrepresentation of left-handedness, while non-interactive sports such as swimming show no overrepresentation. Smaller physical distance between participants increases the overrepresentation. In fencing, about half the participants are left-handed. In tennis, 40% of the seeded players are left-handed. The term southpaw is sometimes used to refer to a left-handed individual, especially in baseball and boxing. Some studies suggest that right handed male athletes tend to be statistically taller and heavier than left handed ones.

Other, sports-specific factors may increase or decrease the advantage left-handers usually hold in one-on-one situations: "One advantage is a left-handed catcher's ability to frame a right-handed pitcher's breaking balls. A right-handed catcher catches a right-hander's breaking ball across his body, with his glove moving out of the strike zone. A left-handed catcher would be able to catch the pitch moving into the strike zone and create a better target for the umpire."
 * In cricket, the overall advantage of a bowler's left-handedness exceeds that resulting from experience alone: even disregarding the experience factor (i.e., even for a batter whose experience against left-handed bowlers equals their experience against right-handed bowlers), a left-handed bowler challenges the average (i.e., right-handed) batter more than a right-handed bowler does, because the angle of a bowler's delivery to an opposite-handed batter is much more penetrating than that of a bowler to a same-handed batter (see Wasim Akram).
 * In baseball, a right-handed pitcher's curve ball will break away from a right-handed batter and towards a left-handed batter (batting left or right does not indicate left or right handedness). While studies of handedness show that only 10% of the general population is left-handed, the proportion of left-handed MLB players is closer to 39% of hitters and 28% of pitchers, according to 2012 data. Historical batting averages show that left-handed batters have a slight advantage over right-handed batters when facing right-handed pitchers. Because there are fewer left-handed pitchers than right-handed pitchers, left-handed batters have more opportunities to face right-handed pitchers than their right-handed counterparts have against left-handed pitchers. Fifteen of the top twenty career batting average leaders in Major League Baseball history have been posted by left-handed batters. Left-handed batters have a slightly shorter run from the batter's box to first base than right-handers. This gives left-handers a slight advantage in beating throws to first base on infield ground balls. Perhaps more important, the follow through of a left-handed swing provides momentum in the direction of first base, while the right handed batter must overcome the swing momentum towards third base before beginning his run.
 * Because a left-handed pitcher faces first base when he is in position to throw to the batter, whereas a right-handed pitcher has his back to first base, a left-handed pitcher has an advantage when attempting to pick off baserunners at first base.
 * Defensively in baseball, left-handedness is considered an advantage for first basemen because they are better suited to fielding balls hit in the gap between first and second base, and because they do not have to pivot their body around before throwing the ball to another infielder. For the same reason, the other infielder's positions are seen as being advantageous to right-handed throwers. Historically, there have been few left-handed catchers because of the perceived disadvantage a left-handed catcher would have in making the throw to third base, especially with a right-handed hitter at the plate. A left-handed catcher would have a potentially more dangerous time tagging out a baserunner trying to score. With the ball in the glove on the right hand, a left-handed catcher would have to turn his body to the left to tag a runner. In doing so, he can lose the opportunity to brace himself for an impending collision. On the other hand, the Encyclopedia of Baseball Catchers states:
 * In four wall handball, typical strategy is to play along the left wall forcing the opponent to use their left hand to counter the attack and playing into the strength of a left-handed competitor.
 * In handball, left-handed players have an advantage on the right side of the field when attacking, getting a better angle, and that defenders might be unused to them. Since few people are left-handed, there is a demand for such players.
 * In water polo, the centre forward position has an advantage in turning to shoot on net when rotating the reverse direction as expected by the centre of the opposition defence and gain an improved position to score. Left-handed drivers are usually on the right side of the field, because they can get better angles to pass the ball or shoot for goal.
 * Ice hockey typically uses a strategy in which a defence pairing includes one left-handed and one right-handed defender. A disproportionately large number of ice hockey players of all positions, 62 percent, shoot left, though this does not necessarily indicate left-handedness.
 * In American football, the handedness of a quarterback affects blocking patterns on the offensive line. Tight ends, when only one is used, typically line up on the same side as the throwing hand of the quarterback, while the offensive tackle on the opposite hand, which protects the quarterback's "blind side", is typically the most valued member of the offensive line. Receivers also have to adapt to the opposite spin. While uncommon, there have been several notable left-handed quarterbacks.
 * In bowling, the oil pattern used on the bowling lane breaks down faster the more times a ball is rolled down the lane. Bowlers must continually adjust their shots to compensate for the ball's change in rotation as the game or series is played and the oil is altered from its original pattern. A left-handed bowler competes on the opposite side of the lane from the right-handed bowler and therefore deals with less breakdown of the original oil placement. This means left-handed bowlers have to adjust their shot less frequently than right-handed bowlers in team events or qualifying rounds where there are possibly 4-10 people per set of two lanes. This can allow them to stay more consistent. However, this advantage is not present in bracket rounds and tournament finals where matches are 1v1 on a pair of lanes.

Sex
According to a meta-analysis of 144 studies, totaling 1,787,629 participants, the best estimate for the male to female odds ratio was 1.23, indicating that men are 23% more likely to be left-handed. For example, if the incidence of female left-handedness was 10%, then the incidence of male left-handedness would be approximately 12% (10% incidence of left-handedness among women multiplied by an odds ratio of 1:1.23 for women:men results in a 12.3% incidence of left-handedness among men).

Sexuality and gender identity
Some studies examining the relationship between handedness and sexual orientation have reported that a disproportionate minority of homosexual people exhibit left-handedness, though findings are mixed.

A 2001 study also found that people assigned male at birth whose gender identity did not align with their assigned sex, were more than twice as likely to be left-handed than a clinical control group (19.5% vs. 8.3%, respectively).

Paraphilias (atypical sexual interests) have also been linked to higher rates of left-handedness. A 2008 study analyzing the sexual fantasies of 200 males found "elevated paraphilic interests were correlated with elevated non-right handedness". Greater rates of left-handedness have also been documented among pedophiles.

A 2014 study attempting to analyze the biological markers of asexuality asserts that non-sexual men and women were 2.4 and 2.5 times, respectively, more likely to be left-handed than their heterosexual counterparts.

Mortality rates in combat
A study at Durham University—which examined mortality data for cricketers whose handedness was a matter of public record—found that left-handed men were almost twice as likely to die in war as their right-handed contemporaries. The study theorised that this was because weapons and other equipment was designed for the right-handed. "I can sympathise with all those left-handed cricketers who have gone to an early grave trying desperately to shoot straight with a right-handed Lee Enfield .303", wrote a journalist reviewing the study in the cricket press. The findings echo those of previous American studies, which found that left-handed US sailors were 34% more likely to have a serious accident than their right-handed counterparts.

Episodic memory
A high level of handedness (whether strongly favoring right or left) is associated with poorer episodic memory, and with poorer communication between brain hemispheres, which may give poorer emotional processing, although bilateral stimulation may reduce such effects.

Corpus callosum
A high level of handedness is associated with a smaller corpus callosum whereas low handedness with a larger one.

Divergent thinking
Left-handedness is associated with better divergent thinking.

Products for left-handed use
Many tools and procedures are designed to facilitate use by right-handed people, often without realizing the difficulties incurred by the left-handed. John W. Santrock has written, "For centuries, left-handers have suffered unfair discrimination in a world designed for right-handers."

Many products for left-handed use are made by specialist producers, although not available from normal suppliers. Items as simple as a knife ground for use with the right hand are less convenient for left-handers. There is a multitude of examples: kitchen tools such as knives, corkscrews and scissors, garden tools, and so on. While not requiring a purpose-designed product, there are more appropriate ways for left-handers to tie shoelaces. There are companies that supply products designed specifically for left-handed use. One such is Anything Left-Handed, which in 1967 opened a shop in Soho, London; the shop closed in 2006, but the company continues to supply left-handed products worldwide by mail order.

Writing from left to right as in many languages, in particular, with the left hand covers and tends to smear (depending upon ink drying) what was just written. Left-handed writers have developed various ways of holding a pen for best results. For using a fountain pen, preferred by many left-handers, nibs ground to optimise left-handed use (pushing rather than pulling across the paper) without scratching are available.

Bias against left-handers
McManus noted that, as the Industrial Revolution spread across Western Europe and the United States in the 19th century, workers needed to operate complex machines that were designed with right-handers in mind. This would have made left-handers more visible and at the same time appear less capable and more clumsy. Writing left-handed with a dip pen, in particular, was prone to blots and smearing.

Negative connotations and discrimination
Moreover, apart from inconvenience, left-handed people have historically been considered unlucky or even malicious for their difference by the right-handed majority. In many languages, including English, the word for the direction "right" also means "correct" or "proper". Throughout history, being left-handed was considered negative, or evil.

The Latin adjective sinister means "left" as well as "unlucky", and this double meaning survives in European derivatives of Latin, including the English words "sinister" (meaning both 'evil' and 'on the bearer's left on a coat of arms') and "ambisinister" meaning 'awkward or clumsy with both or either hand'.

There are many negative connotations associated with the phrase "left-handed": clumsy, awkward, unlucky, insincere, sinister, malicious, and so on. A "left-handed compliment" is one that has two meanings, one of which is unflattering to the recipient. In French, gauche means both "left" and "awkward" or "clumsy", while droit(e) (cognate to English direct and related to "adroit") means both "right" and "straight", as well as "law" and the legal sense of "right". The name "Dexter" derives from the Latin for "right", as does the word "dexterity" meaning manual skill. As these are all very old words, they would tend to support theories indicating that the predominance of right-handedness is an extremely old phenomenon.

Black magic is sometimes referred to as the "left-hand path".

Discrimination in education
Before the development of fountain pens and other writing instruments, children were taught to write with a dip pen. While a right-hander could smoothly drag the pen across paper from left to right, a dip pen could not easily be pushed across by the left hand without digging into the paper and making blots and stains. Even with more modern pens, writing from left to right, as in many languages, with the left hand covers and can smear what was just written when moving across the line.

Into the 20th and even the 21st century, left-handed children in Uganda were beaten by schoolteachers or parents for writing with their left hand, or had their left hands tied behind their backs to force them to write with their right hand. As a child, the future British king George VI (1895–1952) was naturally left-handed. He was forced to write with his right hand, as was common practice at the time. He was not expected to become king, so that was not a factor.

Until very recently in Taiwan, left-handed people were forced to switch to being right-handed, or at least switch to writing with the right hand. Due to the importance of stroke order, developed for the comfortable use of right-handed people, it is considered more difficult to write legible Chinese characters with the left hand than it is to write Latin letters, though difficulty is subjective and depends on the writer. Because writing when moving one's hand away from its side towards the other side of the body can cause smudging if the outward side of the hand is allowed to drag across the writing, writing in the Latin alphabet might possibly be less feasible with the left hand than the right under certain circumstances. Conversely, right-to-left alphabets, such as the Arabic and Hebrew, are generally considered easier to write with the left hand. Depending on the position and inclination of the writing paper, and the writing method, the left-handed writer can write as neatly and efficiently or as messily and slowly as right-handed writers. Usually the left-handed child needs to be taught how to write correctly with the left hand, since discovering a comfortable left-handed writing method on one's own may not be straightforward.

In the Soviet school system, all left-handed children were forced to write with their right hand.

International Left-Handers Day
International Left-Handers Day is held annually every August 13. It was founded by the Left-Handers Club in 1992, with the club itself having been founded in 1990. International Left-Handers Day is, according to the club, "an annual event when left-handers everywhere can celebrate their sinistrality (left-handedness) and increase public awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of being left-handed." It celebrates their uniqueness and differences, who are from seven to ten percent of the world's population. Thousands of left-handed people in today's society have to adapt to use right-handed tools and objects. Again according to the club, "in the U.K. alone there were over 20 regional events to mark the day in 2001 – including left-v-right sports matches, a left-handed tea party, pubs using left-handed corkscrews where patrons drank and played pub games with the left hand only, and nationwide 'Lefty Zones' where left-handers' creativity, adaptability and sporting prowess were celebrated, whilst right-handers were encouraged to try out everyday left-handed objects to see just how awkward it can feel using the wrong equipment."

In other animals
Kangaroos and other macropod marsupials show a left-hand preference for everyday tasks in the wild. 'True' handedness is unexpected in marsupials however, because unlike placental mammals, they lack a corpus callosum. Left-handedness was particularly apparent in the red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) and the eastern gray kangaroo (Macropus giganteus). Red-necked (Bennett's) wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus) preferentially use their left hand for behaviours that involve fine manipulation, but the right for behaviours that require more physical strength. There was less evidence for handedness in arboreal species. Studies of dogs, horses, and domestic cats have shown that females of those species tend to be right-handed, while males tend to be left-handed.

General

 * Cardinal direction
 * Clockwise, which also discusses counterclockwise/anticlockwise, the two terms for the opposite sense of rotation
 * Dexter and sinister
 * Footedness
 * Laterality
 * Left- and right-hand traffic
 * Left-right confusion
 * Ocular dominance (eyedness)
 * Proper right and proper left

Handedness

 * Edinburgh Handedness Inventory
 * Geschwind–Galaburda hypothesis
 * Neuroanatomy of handedness
 * Situs inversus
 * Twins and handedness

title: Handedness


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Lochgoilhead

Lochgoilhead (Ceann Loch Goibhle, IPA:[ˈkʰʲaun̴̪ˈɫ̪ɔxˈkɤilə]) is a village on the Cowal Peninsula, in Argyll and Bute, Scottish Highlands. It is located within the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park and is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful areas in Argyll and in Scotland as a whole.

Location
The village is surrounded by several Corbetts in the Arrochar Alps, including Benn Donich, The Brack and Cnoc Coinnich and local waterways are the River Goil and the Donich Water.

The area has been inhabited for over 10,000 years, with the original name for the area being 'Kil nam brathairan' from the Gaelic for 'Church of the brothers'. There are Neolithic remains in the area, including nearby cup marks and a well-preserved corn kiln. The area is associated with the history of Clan Campbell, who drove the Lamonts from the area in the fourteenth century. Lochgoilhead used to be an important stop on the route between Glasgow and Inverary, as travellers would arrive by boat and continue by coach to St Catherine's, where they would board a second boat to cross Loch Fyne.

Lochgoilhead is situated in the Cowal Peninsula and access to the village is either via the A83 with a turning off the 'Rest and be Thankful', or the A815 from Dunoon. Both roads are single track. Travel times from Glasgow, 50 mi to the south east, are approximately 90 minutes.

The village has a population of about 400, with around a third of the houses being holiday rental properties or second homes. A large holiday village, Drimsynie Estate Holiday Village,nearly doubles the population of Lochgoilhead in high season. Employment in the area is largely related to agriculture, forestry and tourism, with rates of unemployment at approximately the national average. Rates of self-employment are twice the Scottish average.

The village has a Post Office/Shop and a small Costcutter supermarket. There is a church, a village hall which hosts a number of community events, a primary school and a doctor's surgery. Drinks, meals and accommodation are available at the Goil Inn. Accommodation and many other amenities such as a gym, swimming pool and restaurants are available at Drimsynie Estate Holiday Village.

The area has many associations with outdoor activities, including the National Activity Centre for the Scouting Association and the Ardroy Outdoor Centre. There are many famous local walks including the Donich Circular and parts of the Cowal way (a view of Lochgoilhead can be seen on the home page for the Cowal Way website). The area is also incredibly rich in wildlife; red squirrel, pine marten, otters, red deer and badgers are common, as well as seals and porpoises in the loch and eagles and buzzards on the hills. Wildcats used to be common in the area but may now be extinct locally.

There are a number of books about local history available, including 'Loch Goil – A slice out of paradise' (the name is a quote from the famous mountaineer WH Murray), 'Loch Goil – looking back' by Iain Smart and Rod/Tricia Philips, and 'The Lochgoil and Lochlong Steamboat Company' by Iain Smart. There is a community website and the local newspaper 'The Wee Goil' is published monthly.

Parts of the film From Russia with Love were filmed locally, and Sean Connery stayed at the Goil Inn (then the Lochgoilhead Hotel). Restless Natives also shows scenes near Lochgoilhead.

Lochgoilhead Hum
A low frequency noise (LFN) was first reported by residents of the village late in 2015. The source of the noise has not been confirmed despite months of effort and investigation, earning the village a place on the World Hum Database. Similar reports of noise have been recorded on this database from Garelochhead and the out-skirts of Helensburgh - near the MOD facility at Faslane. Sound reports taken using specialized equipment (3rd Octave) in Lochgoilhead have measured high decibel, low frequency noise at three locations:

 * MOD Noise Range - This range is operated on behalf of the MOD by QinetiQ, and includes a floating lab located in the middle of the loch, between The Lodge and Drimsynie Hotel. Until recently the lab was only occupied during trials, but as of late 2015 substantial new equipment was installed and the lab is now permanently occupied and frequently in use. The volume of MOD traffic on the loch has increased substantially over the last year - submarines and frigates have in fact been spotted/photographed on the loch recently. Sound reports taken on the shore near the lab when it is in use have shown LFN of up to 50 dB.
 * Corrow Farm - This farm houses the Estate Office for Drimsynie Hotel and the Head Office for Drimsynie Construction. It is also a working farm, using new generating equipment which run almost constantly and generates LFN of up to 60 dB.
 * Waste Water Treatment Works - This plant, operated by ScottishWater, is located at the edge of the village where it expels into the Donich River. When the plant pumps/turbines are in operation LFN of up to 60 dB has been recorded.

Lochgoilhead Fever
An outbreak of non-pneumonic legionellosis due to Legionella micdadei in 1988 became known as Lochgoilhead fever (similar to Pontiac fever), the source of which was traced to a local hotel/spa. Two more minor outbreaks have occurred since - the most recent being in 2006, affecting only one resident and two visitors - following use the facilities at the same hotel/spa.

title: Lochgoilhead