Aerial view of Cullochy Lock

Description Aerial view of Cullochy Lock

Date 1985

Collection RCAHMS Aerial Photography

Catalogue Number A 36810

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 799683, SC 1675817

Scope and Content Aerial view, Cullochy Lock, Caledonian Canal, Highland, from north-east This aerial view from the north-east shows Cullochy Lock with the River Oich to the top. In front of the lock there is a small building which was used as a storehouse, and the lock-keeper's cottage is the building with dormers (centre right). The semi-detached buildings (right foreground) were also used as accommodation for canal workers and there are mooring points for boats at either side of the lock. This lock is very isolated with the nearest village being Fort Augustus about 6km away. This isolation did not deter the Kennedy family who worked at the lock from 1919 till at least the 1970s. The advantages of the job for them were a rent-free house with land. Other locks along the canal were also operated by generations of the same family. The Caledonian Canal was designed by Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and built between 1803 and 1822 at a cost of £840,000. It was the first example of a transport network funded by the government in Great Britain. The 96.5km-long canal provides a route for boats travelling between the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean as it runs from the Beauly Firth at Clachnaharry, Inverness, to Loch Linnhe at Corpach. Only 35.4km of this length is man-made while the other 61km runs through four lochs: Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. Unfortunately at 4.2m deep the canal was too small for most sea-going ships which led to it being altered and deepened between 1844 and 1847. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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